Trust is essential in every good business partnership, but knowing whether your vendors merit that trust can be difficult. With the boost in information technology (IT) services, the avenues for which trust can be broken, either intentionally or unintentionally, have increased. For this reason, it’s essential that your organization complete an information security questionnaire to properly assess risks and vulnerabilities well before working with third-party vendors. Let’s take a closer look!
What is an information security questionnaire?
An information security questionnaire — otherwise known as vendor assessment security questionnaire or vendor risk assessment questionnaire — is a set of questions used to help understand specific vulnerabilities, risks, and threats associated with third-party vendors.
An information security questionnaire is a great way to ensure that information technology service providers are abiding by appropriate security practices so your company can weigh the risk of entrusting them with critical data.
What is the importance of a vendor assessment security questionnaire?
To best protect your organization from a data breach or cyber-attack, you must understand all inherent risks and implications from working with third-parties — more specifically, their processes surrounding data sharing. A vendor risk assessment questionnaire helps answer questions about how your vendors handle, share, receive, and store sensitive data. Having a clear understanding of how third-party vendors protect data at every stage is critical to ensure sensitive information isn’t vulnerable to a data breach.
What questions are included in an information security questionnaire?
Information security questionnaires have 4 distinct categories of risk including physical, informational, infrastructure, and web application security. Within each category, a series of questions are included to help your business understand any and all security processes of a third-party vendor.
To help you better understand the kinds of questions that are included in an information security questionnaire, we’ve compiled a list of security questions you could consider.
- Physical security
Is the physical network or software secured?
Is there a business continuity plan in place?
What measures are in place to secure physical networks?
- Information security
Does the organization have a documented security program in place?
If so, what kind and what standards do you follow?
What kind of privacy program does the organization use?
Does the privacy program cover all services, systems, and operations of sensitive data?
- Infrastructure security
Does the organization have backups of data?
Is there a method in place for logging and identifying security events?
- Web application security
Does the application for your organization have a valid SSL certificate?
Are there protocols in place to ensure good password hygiene?
What are the top information security questionnaires?
As more information security questionnaires are being introduced to the market, it can be a challenge for a business to decide what vendor assessment security questionnaire structure to utilize, at which time, and for what vendor.
At SecurityScorecard, protecting your organization’s vulnerabilities and security gaps is our job and passion. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the top six questionnaires to use to guarantee your company’s data is protected.
Here are six of the top information security questionnaires for IT vendor assessments:
1. Center for Internet Security – CIS Critical Security Controls (CSC)
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is a pioneering, not-for-profit entity that uses the power of a worldwide IT community to ensure that private and public organizations are safe from cyber threats.
The Center for Internet Security offers 20 controls to provide guidelines for how to adequately address security systems and the flow of sensitive data when warding off cybersecurity threats. Since the CIS controls are rooted in a deep understanding of the cyber-attacks lifecycle, they thoroughly address the most common indications of these dangers and how to adjust combative processes accordingly.
The CIS Controls offers more than 150 questions mapped to incorporate a widely-recognized set of cybersecurity standards.
2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) uses realistic privacy and cybersecurity through the outreach and implementation of standards and best practices that are necessary for the United States to adopt cybersecurity competence.
The NIST Special Publication 800-53 is a list of guidelines and standards to help federal agencies and contractors meet the requirements set by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). Their objective is to provide a holistic approach to risk management and cybersecurity by offering organizations with a wide range of security controls to strengthen their information systems and the environments in which those systems operate.
3. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards Council (PCI SSC)
Founded in 2006 by the five top credit card providers, including Mastercard, Visa, Discover, Amex and JCB International, the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) is a global forum that unifies payments industry stakeholders to develop and drive the adoption of data security resources and standards for safe payments all over the world. Their standards were created to increase controls around credit card holder data to decrease credit card fraud.
4. Shared Assessments Group
The Shared Assessments Program is “the trusted source for third party risk management.” They offer organizations a breadth of resources, tools, and best practices to efficiently manage important components of the vendor risk management lifecycle.
Their SIG questionnaire is a holistic tool for risk management assessments of IT, cybersecurity, data security, business resiliency, and privacy in an IT environment.
5. Vendor Security Alliance
The Vendor Security Alliance (VSA) is a non-profit that is dedicated to improving general internet security and vendor-related cyber threats. A coalition of companies, they recognize the criticality of community and the need for widespread awareness in combating these ever-evolving digital threats.
The Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire (VSAQ) was first published in 2016 to help companies vet their suppliers’ security practices. It is made up of six sections and addresses security policy, data protection, reactive security measures, compliance, and supply chain management. Their questionnaire was created with the vendor in mind and focuses on eliminating unnecessary friction during the security review procedure.
6. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in European law on data protection and privacy. Their vendor questionnaire was created to help businesses ensure that their cloud suppliers will be compliant and process data in a compliant method.
What are the challenges of information security vendor questionnaires?
Although the traditional information security questionnaire process is vital to oversee third-party risks, it can be arduous, complex, and difficult to administer — even when utilizing one of the frameworks discussed above. Most challenges originate from designating roles and responsibilities, which can be complicated when organizations do not have experienced staff who are familiar with conducting a vendor risk assessment. Therefore, organizations need to invest in tools that help automate and streamline the entire vendor risk assessment process.
How to automate information security questionnaires with SecurityScorecard
The power of automation and machine learning has allowed organizations to assess and validate the overall risks of vendors, as well as identify vulnerabilities to data breaches and cyber attacks well before they occur.
SecurityScorecard Atlas can help accelerate and modernize the vendor risk assessment process by enabling senders and receivers to easily manage, complete, and review questionnaires and evidence in one secure central repository. With simplified and accelerated responses to questionnaires, streamlined compliance with a single source of truth, and continual communication between vendors and vendor risk managers, Altas allows businesses to automate the cybersecurity questionnaire at scale.
Curious to learn more on how SecurityScorecard Altas can help secure your business from vendor risks? Sign up for a free account and begin assessing cybersecurity risks.
