According to Optiv’s research, 74% of businesses deal with unknown risk factors because they don’t have full visibility of the third parties handling their data and personally identifiable information (PII). This lack of oversight often stems from incomplete risk assessments that leave room for unidentified vulnerabilities.
If you want to retain complete control over your third-party risk landscape, learning how to leverage a comprehensive vendor risk assessment questionnaire can help. In this beginner-friendly guide, we’ll cover:
- Benefits of vendor risk assessment questionnaires
- Industry-standard questionnaires to implement
- Sample questions for different vendor risks
What are vendor risk assessment questionnaires and how can you benefit from them?
A vendor risk assessment (VRA) questionnaire is a tool for assessing a vendor’s active threat management measures and safeguards, as well as controls to mitigate those risks. It’s a set of questions designed to gather data on the major risk areas a vendor might expose you to. The tool ultimately steers you toward beneficial procurement and risk management decisions.
Risk assessment questionnaires are useful in three prominent areas, namely:
- Risk identification and planning: Questionnaires provide a standardized way to uncover various types of vendor risks that are typically not mentioned during negotiations. The responses serve as the source of truth for planning risk mitigation strategies should you decide to partner with a vendor.
- Compliance checks: A VRA questionnaire can help identify compliance gaps on the vendor’s end. This awareness allows you to modify SLAs and contracts to include basic compliance requirements.
- Data security measures: Based on questionnaire responses, you can set appropriate internal security measures to safeguard your data from unauthorized access.
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3 industry-standard VRA questionnaires to consider
While you can create a VRA questionnaire from scratch, most organizations prefer adopting a ready-made questionnaire vetted by industry leaders. Let’s dive into three of the most widely used options:
- SIG
- CAIQ
- HECVAT
1. SIG
The Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire was developed by Shared Assessments, a leading provider of tools and resources for third-party risk management (TPRM). The questionnaire aims to help organizations identify diverse third-party risks and is updated annually to ensure its contents remain relevant.
The questionnaire is a versatile option for most organizations as it covers risk considerations across 21 control areas, such as:
- Application security
- Access controls
- Endpoint security
- Operational resilience
- Server security
- Threat management
The SIG questionnaire is fully configurable, so you can adapt it to your vendor risk landscape and supply chain specifics. The configurations are accessible through the SIG Manager, which lets you create customized assessments based on provided resources.
You will also get resources like the SIG User Procedure Guide and SIG Implementation Workbook along with the questionnaire, which will help you get started quickly and avoid an extensive learning curve.
Keep in mind that Shared Assessments created the SIG questionnaire in alignment with major risk management standards, frameworks, and regulations. As a result, implementing it can help you ensure compliance with common compliance standards, including:
2. CAIQ
The Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) by Cloud Security Alliance comes in the form of a downloadable spreadsheet with yes/no-format questions. Compared to the versatile SIG questionnaire, its scope differs in the sense that it’s primarily designed for cybersecurity assessments.
The CAIQ questionnaire is naturally best suited for organizations with many SaaS providers or those aiming to tighten their cybersecurity posture.
At the time of writing this guide, the latest version of CAIQ is v4.0.2 (released in March 2024), which is a significant upgrade from the previous v3.1. The main updates include:
- 261 questions instead of 310 to ensure a better focus and easier adoption
- Dedicated columns for the Shared Responsibility Model that foster greater accountability
- Structural changes that better account for the security requirements of cloud solutions
- New metrics for cloud security and privacy to support internal governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) activities
If the complete CAIQ version seems too extensive to implement immediately, you can opt for CAIQ-Lite instead. It comes with 124 questions and can be accessed free of charge on the Cloud Security Alliance’s website.
3. HECVAT
HECVAT stands for Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit. It’s a collection of risk assessment resources developed by the Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC). It’s aimed primarily at colleges and universities and the third-party vendors they work with. Despite the focus on universities, organizations in other sectors can also use it to conduct thorough risk assessments.
Similar to CAIQ, the HECVAT questionnaire is available for download as an Excel spreadsheet. A notable advantage is that both its Full 3.06 and Lite 3.05 versions are free and mapped to frameworks like PCI DSS and NIST CSF, so it can be particularly useful for users on a budget.
HECVAT offers a dedicated sheet where the vendor can answer numerous questions regarding cybersecurity aspects like IT accessibility, service security, and system management. The questionnaire can help create a summary report within the spreadsheet—ideal for identifying critical risks right away.
HECVAT offers two additional tools that help universities understand their risk landscape:
- Triage: Used for determining risk assessment requirements and initiating security assessment requests (it’s used by the institutions, not vendors).
- On-premise: Designed to help universities evaluate their on-premise software and appliances.
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Sample questions to include in your VRA questionnaire
Industry-standard questionnaires may not be universally applicable, which is why many organizations only use them as references for creating questionnaires tailored to their needs.
If you have the time and resources to build your own VRA questionnaire, the best way forward is to address the following components systematically:
- Cybersecurity risks
- IT governance
- Process controls
- Technical system and configuration controls
We’ll cover each component below and provide some examples of questions you can include.
1. Cybersecurity risks
Today’s vendor networks are heavily dominated by software solutions. However, adopting any new software expands your potential attack surface—a breach of a vendor’s systems can jeopardize the data you share with them. So, your security questions should be framed around understanding your vendor’s cybersecurity precautions.
Here are some sample cybersecurity-oriented questions you can add to your questionnaire:
- Does your organization have written policies for addressing malware and ransomware?
- Do your employees have awareness regarding social engineering attacks?
- Which encryption protocols do you use to protect your devices and networks?
- Does your organization define an incident response plan?
- How often do you conduct third-party access reviews?
2. IT governance
Accountability is a crucial aspect of IT security, so you should see that your vendors have well-defined responsibilities for identifying, reporting, and mitigating risks.
To check if a vendor maintains robust IT governance, ask the following questions:
- Who is in charge of overseeing IT risks in your organization?
- How (and to whom) does your team report cybersecurity concerns and incidents?
- How often are your IT policies and procedures reviewed and updated?
- Do you have a cross-department committee to discuss security concerns?
- Does your organization undergo third-party security reviews or formal audits?
3. Process controls
Process controls are implemented to help organizations protect sensitive information. Go for questions that determine if vendors tie risks to relevant processes and define the controls that should be monitored ongoingly.
Here are some sample questions you can ask to extract the right information:
- How do you log and inventorize authorized software?
- How do you control admin access to systems?
- Do you conduct penetration testing and vulnerability scanning? If so, how often?
- Can you provide details on your incident response plan and how it is tested?
- Does your organization have a defined disaster recovery plan?
4. Technical system and configuration controls
Due to the diversity of cybersecurity attacks, you should determine what kind of technical controls a vendor uses to protect your data.
Here are some related questions you should ask to gauge their preparedness:
- Do you have an intrusion detection system (IDS)?
- How often are firewall configurations reviewed and updated?
- Do you implement network segregation? If so, how?
- Does your system enable multi-factor authentication?
- Which access control model do you implement?
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Challenges to expect with VRA questionnaires
Compiling a vendor risk assessment questionnaire is only half the job done. After sending out questionnaires, you’ll need to go through several processes, such as:
- Data extraction and analysis
- Evidence management
- Reporting with necessary conclusions
These tasks can be quite tedious if done manually, especially if you have to dig through multiple completed questionnaires at a time. While the questionnaire itself can be something as simple as a spreadsheet, you need a more elaborate system for conducting risk assessments and processing responses faster.
A solution here is to pick a capable VRM software tool that automates mundane tasks for security reviews. Many platforms also leverage AI to help with data analysis tasks, giving you more time to focus on executive decisions.
Analyze questionnaires and manage vendor risks with Vanta
Vanta’s comprehensive Vendor Risk Management solution is made for streamlining vendor risk assessments. It offers a default template for questionnaires, but you can also customize your own. Other VRM features to simplify your workflows include:
- Auto-scoring vendor risks with configurable parameters
- Centralized vendor inventory management and integration-based shadow IT discovery
- Comprehensive dashboard for real-time security tracking
You can leverage Vanta AI for faster data processing when navigating completed questionnaires and security reports. Watch our free webinar to see Vanta in action Or schedule a custom demo today.
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Vendor risk assessment
Vendor risk assessment questionnaire: A guide for beginners
Vendor risk assessment
According to Optiv’s research, 74% of businesses deal with unknown risk factors because they don’t have full visibility of the third parties handling their data and personally identifiable information (PII). This lack of oversight often stems from incomplete risk assessments that leave room for unidentified vulnerabilities.
If you want to retain complete control over your third-party risk landscape, learning how to leverage a comprehensive vendor risk assessment questionnaire can help. In this beginner-friendly guide, we’ll cover:
- Benefits of vendor risk assessment questionnaires
- Industry-standard questionnaires to implement
- Sample questions for different vendor risks
What are vendor risk assessment questionnaires and how can you benefit from them?
A vendor risk assessment (VRA) questionnaire is a tool for assessing a vendor’s active threat management measures and safeguards, as well as controls to mitigate those risks. It’s a set of questions designed to gather data on the major risk areas a vendor might expose you to. The tool ultimately steers you toward beneficial procurement and risk management decisions.
Risk assessment questionnaires are useful in three prominent areas, namely:
- Risk identification and planning: Questionnaires provide a standardized way to uncover various types of vendor risks that are typically not mentioned during negotiations. The responses serve as the source of truth for planning risk mitigation strategies should you decide to partner with a vendor.
- Compliance checks: A VRA questionnaire can help identify compliance gaps on the vendor’s end. This awareness allows you to modify SLAs and contracts to include basic compliance requirements.
- Data security measures: Based on questionnaire responses, you can set appropriate internal security measures to safeguard your data from unauthorized access.
{{cta_withimage5="/cta-modules"}}
3 industry-standard VRA questionnaires to consider
While you can create a VRA questionnaire from scratch, most organizations prefer adopting a ready-made questionnaire vetted by industry leaders. Let’s dive into three of the most widely used options:
- SIG
- CAIQ
- HECVAT
1. SIG
The Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire was developed by Shared Assessments, a leading provider of tools and resources for third-party risk management (TPRM). The questionnaire aims to help organizations identify diverse third-party risks and is updated annually to ensure its contents remain relevant.
The questionnaire is a versatile option for most organizations as it covers risk considerations across 21 control areas, such as:
- Application security
- Access controls
- Endpoint security
- Operational resilience
- Server security
- Threat management
The SIG questionnaire is fully configurable, so you can adapt it to your vendor risk landscape and supply chain specifics. The configurations are accessible through the SIG Manager, which lets you create customized assessments based on provided resources.
You will also get resources like the SIG User Procedure Guide and SIG Implementation Workbook along with the questionnaire, which will help you get started quickly and avoid an extensive learning curve.
Keep in mind that Shared Assessments created the SIG questionnaire in alignment with major risk management standards, frameworks, and regulations. As a result, implementing it can help you ensure compliance with common compliance standards, including:
2. CAIQ
The Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) by Cloud Security Alliance comes in the form of a downloadable spreadsheet with yes/no-format questions. Compared to the versatile SIG questionnaire, its scope differs in the sense that it’s primarily designed for cybersecurity assessments.
The CAIQ questionnaire is naturally best suited for organizations with many SaaS providers or those aiming to tighten their cybersecurity posture.
At the time of writing this guide, the latest version of CAIQ is v4.0.2 (released in March 2024), which is a significant upgrade from the previous v3.1. The main updates include:
- 261 questions instead of 310 to ensure a better focus and easier adoption
- Dedicated columns for the Shared Responsibility Model that foster greater accountability
- Structural changes that better account for the security requirements of cloud solutions
- New metrics for cloud security and privacy to support internal governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) activities
If the complete CAIQ version seems too extensive to implement immediately, you can opt for CAIQ-Lite instead. It comes with 124 questions and can be accessed free of charge on the Cloud Security Alliance’s website.
3. HECVAT
HECVAT stands for Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit. It’s a collection of risk assessment resources developed by the Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC). It’s aimed primarily at colleges and universities and the third-party vendors they work with. Despite the focus on universities, organizations in other sectors can also use it to conduct thorough risk assessments.
Similar to CAIQ, the HECVAT questionnaire is available for download as an Excel spreadsheet. A notable advantage is that both its Full 3.06 and Lite 3.05 versions are free and mapped to frameworks like PCI DSS and NIST CSF, so it can be particularly useful for users on a budget.
HECVAT offers a dedicated sheet where the vendor can answer numerous questions regarding cybersecurity aspects like IT accessibility, service security, and system management. The questionnaire can help create a summary report within the spreadsheet—ideal for identifying critical risks right away.
HECVAT offers two additional tools that help universities understand their risk landscape:
- Triage: Used for determining risk assessment requirements and initiating security assessment requests (it’s used by the institutions, not vendors).
- On-premise: Designed to help universities evaluate their on-premise software and appliances.
{{cta_simple17="/cta-modules"}}
Sample questions to include in your VRA questionnaire
Industry-standard questionnaires may not be universally applicable, which is why many organizations only use them as references for creating questionnaires tailored to their needs.
If you have the time and resources to build your own VRA questionnaire, the best way forward is to address the following components systematically:
- Cybersecurity risks
- IT governance
- Process controls
- Technical system and configuration controls
We’ll cover each component below and provide some examples of questions you can include.
1. Cybersecurity risks
Today’s vendor networks are heavily dominated by software solutions. However, adopting any new software expands your potential attack surface—a breach of a vendor’s systems can jeopardize the data you share with them. So, your security questions should be framed around understanding your vendor’s cybersecurity precautions.
Here are some sample cybersecurity-oriented questions you can add to your questionnaire:
- Does your organization have written policies for addressing malware and ransomware?
- Do your employees have awareness regarding social engineering attacks?
- Which encryption protocols do you use to protect your devices and networks?
- Does your organization define an incident response plan?
- How often do you conduct third-party access reviews?
2. IT governance
Accountability is a crucial aspect of IT security, so you should see that your vendors have well-defined responsibilities for identifying, reporting, and mitigating risks.
To check if a vendor maintains robust IT governance, ask the following questions:
- Who is in charge of overseeing IT risks in your organization?
- How (and to whom) does your team report cybersecurity concerns and incidents?
- How often are your IT policies and procedures reviewed and updated?
- Do you have a cross-department committee to discuss security concerns?
- Does your organization undergo third-party security reviews or formal audits?
3. Process controls
Process controls are implemented to help organizations protect sensitive information. Go for questions that determine if vendors tie risks to relevant processes and define the controls that should be monitored ongoingly.
Here are some sample questions you can ask to extract the right information:
- How do you log and inventorize authorized software?
- How do you control admin access to systems?
- Do you conduct penetration testing and vulnerability scanning? If so, how often?
- Can you provide details on your incident response plan and how it is tested?
- Does your organization have a defined disaster recovery plan?
4. Technical system and configuration controls
Due to the diversity of cybersecurity attacks, you should determine what kind of technical controls a vendor uses to protect your data.
Here are some related questions you should ask to gauge their preparedness:
- Do you have an intrusion detection system (IDS)?
- How often are firewall configurations reviewed and updated?
- Do you implement network segregation? If so, how?
- Does your system enable multi-factor authentication?
- Which access control model do you implement?
{{cta_withimage5="/cta-modules"}}
Challenges to expect with VRA questionnaires
Compiling a vendor risk assessment questionnaire is only half the job done. After sending out questionnaires, you’ll need to go through several processes, such as:
- Data extraction and analysis
- Evidence management
- Reporting with necessary conclusions
These tasks can be quite tedious if done manually, especially if you have to dig through multiple completed questionnaires at a time. While the questionnaire itself can be something as simple as a spreadsheet, you need a more elaborate system for conducting risk assessments and processing responses faster.
A solution here is to pick a capable VRM software tool that automates mundane tasks for security reviews. Many platforms also leverage AI to help with data analysis tasks, giving you more time to focus on executive decisions.
Analyze questionnaires and manage vendor risks with Vanta
Vanta’s comprehensive Vendor Risk Management solution is made for streamlining vendor risk assessments. It offers a default template for questionnaires, but you can also customize your own. Other VRM features to simplify your workflows include:
- Auto-scoring vendor risks with configurable parameters
- Centralized vendor inventory management and integration-based shadow IT discovery
- Comprehensive dashboard for real-time security tracking
You can leverage Vanta AI for faster data processing when navigating completed questionnaires and security reports. Watch our free webinar to see Vanta in action Or schedule a custom demo today.
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