Organizations looking to enhance their security posture often seek more guidance and structure around securing third-party partnerships. The good news is that many authoritative bodies have developed frameworks and tools to address security aspects in vendor relationships in a clear and actionable manner.
The Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire (VSAQ) is among such tools. The Vendor Security Alliance was founded together by several reputable companies, including Airbnb, Atlassian, and Uber, and its questionnaire aims to help organizations assess their vendors’ security practices thoroughly.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything you should know about the VSAQ, most notably:
- What it is and how it works
- Which forms of the questionnaire are available
- What challenges to expect when completing it and how to resolve them
What is the Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire (VSAQ)?
The VSAQ was created by the Vendor Security Alliance, a coalition of organizations dedicated to improving organizational security and compliance practices. It comes in the form of a downloadable spreadsheet with open and closed questions to enable more efficient vendor due diligence and security reviews, particularly in the cybersecurity domain.
Unlike many security questionnaires, the VSAQ is free to download on the VSA’s website. This makes it an excellent option for growing organizations that want to fortify their security without extensive investments.
{{cta_withimage10="/cta-modules"}} | Shift Left: How to Turn Security into Revenue
How to use the VSAQ
You can use the VSAQ independently or as a part of the VSA’s vendor due diligence survey. If you opt for the latter, you’ll have to go through an elaborate process—outlined below:
- You send a vendor list to the VSA so that they can see if some of the vendors have already been audited (in which case you can access the results immediately)
- The VSA contacts the vendor and sends out the VSAQ
- The vendor submits the completed VSAQ
- An independent auditor may assess the responses
- You get a report summarizing the key findings and the vendor’s responses
You may also find yourself on the receiving end of a VSAQ if you’re navigating sales opportunities. In this case, you can use the questionnaire to demonstrate your security posture and build trust with your customers or other stakeholders.
2 versions of the VSAQ you can choose from
The VSAQ comes in two versions depending on the depth of assessments you need:
- VSA-Core
- VSA-Full
1. VSA-Core
The VSA-Core is a condensed version of the VSAQ that contains the most critical questions for safeguarding your organization’s security and minimizing your attack surface. It’s best suited for organizations new to security that wish to get started with security questionnaires.
The VSA-Core starts with a brief introduction of definitions and legal terms. The rest of the questionnaire consists of six focus areas:
- Service introduction: This is where the vendor inputs basic company information and insights about their services.
- Data inventory: This section outlines the different types of data assets so that the vendor can choose those they process as a part of their operations.
- Security CORE Controls: You get information about the 40+ security and privacy controls the vendor should demonstrate.
- Privacy introduction: This section briefly summarizes the questionnaire’s USA and EU privacy components.
- USA privacy: You’ll learn about the key data privacy controls and requirements encompassed by the CCPA.
- GDPR privacy: The section lists 20+ requirements of the GDPR so that the vendor can confirm whether they meet the necessary obligations.
2. VSA-Full
The VSA-Full questionnaire is the main and more comprehensive version of the VSAQ, which encompasses a robust set of security and privacy controls a vendor should implement to ensure a solid security posture. It is widely used during comprehensive vendor selection processes.
As far as structure is concerned, the questionnaire contains some basic introductory elements, such as definitions and legal terms, and is then followed by the following eight focus areas:
- Service overview: This section lets the vendor leave their basic service information and provide any applicable certificates.
- Data protection and access controls: You’ll find open and closed questions regarding data processing, encryption, and other important elements of data protection and access management.
- Policies and standards: This section requires the vendor to answer whether they have the necessary security policies and standards in place, such as the InfoSEC SP or risk management program, and provide supporting documentation.
- Proactive security: This set of questions addresses a vendor’s vulnerability management, endpoint security, and other practices that ensure proactive security.
- Reactive security: This section includes both open and closed questions about a vendor’s threat intelligence, incident responses, and similar components of incident management.
- Software supply chain: The vendor has to answer questions about code security, deployment processes, and dependency management.
- Customer-facing application security: You’ll find questions about user authentication, password management, audit logging, and other aspects of app security that directly impact users.
- Compliance: The final section addresses an organization's internal audit process, certifications, and compliance with the applicable regulations and standards.
{{cta_webinar5="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation webinar
How is the VSAQ different from other security questionnaires?
There are other questionnaires besides VSAQ that you can use to improve your security posture or perform in-depth vendor assessments. The following options are widely used across industries:
- Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire
- Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ)
The VSAQ stands out as a free and easy-to-use option that is useful for both internal security reviews and vendor assessments. The following table outlines the key differences between these questionnaires:
Compared to other questionnaires, the VSAQ isn’t too comprehensive when it comes to mapping security frameworks and regulations. If your organization has complex vendor networks and security landscapes, you may want to opt for a more comprehensive option.
Completing the VSAQ: Challenges to expect
Despite the VSAQ’s focus on the key vendor security areas, completing the questionnaire entails robust internal assessments and evidence collection. The main challenges you might run into during the process include:
- Manual workflows: Since VSAQ requires extensive document gathering and monitoring of security controls to add appropriate responses, completing it manually can be a time sink for security teams.
- Disparate systems for evidence collection: Looking for proof of security control effectiveness by combing through spreadsheets, email chains, and reports can be a tedious and error-prone process.
- Resource strains: Without a streamlined questionnaire completion workflow, your team might waste numerous hours and considerable energy that could be invested in more high-impact activities that add to your ROI.
While these issues were frustrating in the past, teams today have a more straightforward solution—questionnaire automation. By opting for the right automation software, you can expedite numerous questionnaire completion tasks and remove team-wide inefficiencies.
Complete VSAQ faster with Vanta
If you want to reduce the busywork of security teams working on questionnaires, Vanta can help. It’s a comprehensive trust management platform that automates numerous manual and repetitive tasks, helping you complete questionnaires faster.
The platform offers multiple product suites tailored to the needs of security teams. For instance, Vanta’s Questionnaire Automation product comes with features that simplify the completion of the VSAQ. Complete security questionnaires 5x faster with:
- AI-enabled responses with 95 percent acceptance rate and automated questionnaire processing
- A centralized security knowledge base that houses all security data and questionnaire responses
- Multi-format questionnaire completion to accommodate a prospect’s preferences
- 73 percent coverage of security questions
- 350+ integrations to streamline data gathering and monitoring
Request a demo to review how these features can work for your organization.
If your business has to constantly demonstrate security to prospects and stakeholders, you can also use Vanta’s Trust Center. It’s a portal that your stakeholders can access to get a real-time overview of your security and compliance posture.
Here’s an on-demand webinar you can watch to understand how the Trust Center can boost your sales opportunities.
{{cta_simple13="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation product page
Security Questionnaires
What is the VSAQ (Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire)?
Security Questionnaires
Organizations looking to enhance their security posture often seek more guidance and structure around securing third-party partnerships. The good news is that many authoritative bodies have developed frameworks and tools to address security aspects in vendor relationships in a clear and actionable manner.
The Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire (VSAQ) is among such tools. The Vendor Security Alliance was founded together by several reputable companies, including Airbnb, Atlassian, and Uber, and its questionnaire aims to help organizations assess their vendors’ security practices thoroughly.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything you should know about the VSAQ, most notably:
- What it is and how it works
- Which forms of the questionnaire are available
- What challenges to expect when completing it and how to resolve them
What is the Vendor Security Alliance Questionnaire (VSAQ)?
The VSAQ was created by the Vendor Security Alliance, a coalition of organizations dedicated to improving organizational security and compliance practices. It comes in the form of a downloadable spreadsheet with open and closed questions to enable more efficient vendor due diligence and security reviews, particularly in the cybersecurity domain.
Unlike many security questionnaires, the VSAQ is free to download on the VSA’s website. This makes it an excellent option for growing organizations that want to fortify their security without extensive investments.
{{cta_withimage10="/cta-modules"}} | Shift Left: How to Turn Security into Revenue
How to use the VSAQ
You can use the VSAQ independently or as a part of the VSA’s vendor due diligence survey. If you opt for the latter, you’ll have to go through an elaborate process—outlined below:
- You send a vendor list to the VSA so that they can see if some of the vendors have already been audited (in which case you can access the results immediately)
- The VSA contacts the vendor and sends out the VSAQ
- The vendor submits the completed VSAQ
- An independent auditor may assess the responses
- You get a report summarizing the key findings and the vendor’s responses
You may also find yourself on the receiving end of a VSAQ if you’re navigating sales opportunities. In this case, you can use the questionnaire to demonstrate your security posture and build trust with your customers or other stakeholders.
2 versions of the VSAQ you can choose from
The VSAQ comes in two versions depending on the depth of assessments you need:
- VSA-Core
- VSA-Full
1. VSA-Core
The VSA-Core is a condensed version of the VSAQ that contains the most critical questions for safeguarding your organization’s security and minimizing your attack surface. It’s best suited for organizations new to security that wish to get started with security questionnaires.
The VSA-Core starts with a brief introduction of definitions and legal terms. The rest of the questionnaire consists of six focus areas:
- Service introduction: This is where the vendor inputs basic company information and insights about their services.
- Data inventory: This section outlines the different types of data assets so that the vendor can choose those they process as a part of their operations.
- Security CORE Controls: You get information about the 40+ security and privacy controls the vendor should demonstrate.
- Privacy introduction: This section briefly summarizes the questionnaire’s USA and EU privacy components.
- USA privacy: You’ll learn about the key data privacy controls and requirements encompassed by the CCPA.
- GDPR privacy: The section lists 20+ requirements of the GDPR so that the vendor can confirm whether they meet the necessary obligations.
2. VSA-Full
The VSA-Full questionnaire is the main and more comprehensive version of the VSAQ, which encompasses a robust set of security and privacy controls a vendor should implement to ensure a solid security posture. It is widely used during comprehensive vendor selection processes.
As far as structure is concerned, the questionnaire contains some basic introductory elements, such as definitions and legal terms, and is then followed by the following eight focus areas:
- Service overview: This section lets the vendor leave their basic service information and provide any applicable certificates.
- Data protection and access controls: You’ll find open and closed questions regarding data processing, encryption, and other important elements of data protection and access management.
- Policies and standards: This section requires the vendor to answer whether they have the necessary security policies and standards in place, such as the InfoSEC SP or risk management program, and provide supporting documentation.
- Proactive security: This set of questions addresses a vendor’s vulnerability management, endpoint security, and other practices that ensure proactive security.
- Reactive security: This section includes both open and closed questions about a vendor’s threat intelligence, incident responses, and similar components of incident management.
- Software supply chain: The vendor has to answer questions about code security, deployment processes, and dependency management.
- Customer-facing application security: You’ll find questions about user authentication, password management, audit logging, and other aspects of app security that directly impact users.
- Compliance: The final section addresses an organization's internal audit process, certifications, and compliance with the applicable regulations and standards.
{{cta_webinar5="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation webinar
How is the VSAQ different from other security questionnaires?
There are other questionnaires besides VSAQ that you can use to improve your security posture or perform in-depth vendor assessments. The following options are widely used across industries:
- Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) questionnaire
- Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ)
The VSAQ stands out as a free and easy-to-use option that is useful for both internal security reviews and vendor assessments. The following table outlines the key differences between these questionnaires:
Compared to other questionnaires, the VSAQ isn’t too comprehensive when it comes to mapping security frameworks and regulations. If your organization has complex vendor networks and security landscapes, you may want to opt for a more comprehensive option.
Completing the VSAQ: Challenges to expect
Despite the VSAQ’s focus on the key vendor security areas, completing the questionnaire entails robust internal assessments and evidence collection. The main challenges you might run into during the process include:
- Manual workflows: Since VSAQ requires extensive document gathering and monitoring of security controls to add appropriate responses, completing it manually can be a time sink for security teams.
- Disparate systems for evidence collection: Looking for proof of security control effectiveness by combing through spreadsheets, email chains, and reports can be a tedious and error-prone process.
- Resource strains: Without a streamlined questionnaire completion workflow, your team might waste numerous hours and considerable energy that could be invested in more high-impact activities that add to your ROI.
While these issues were frustrating in the past, teams today have a more straightforward solution—questionnaire automation. By opting for the right automation software, you can expedite numerous questionnaire completion tasks and remove team-wide inefficiencies.
Complete VSAQ faster with Vanta
If you want to reduce the busywork of security teams working on questionnaires, Vanta can help. It’s a comprehensive trust management platform that automates numerous manual and repetitive tasks, helping you complete questionnaires faster.
The platform offers multiple product suites tailored to the needs of security teams. For instance, Vanta’s Questionnaire Automation product comes with features that simplify the completion of the VSAQ. Complete security questionnaires 5x faster with:
- AI-enabled responses with 95 percent acceptance rate and automated questionnaire processing
- A centralized security knowledge base that houses all security data and questionnaire responses
- Multi-format questionnaire completion to accommodate a prospect’s preferences
- 73 percent coverage of security questions
- 350+ integrations to streamline data gathering and monitoring
Request a demo to review how these features can work for your organization.
If your business has to constantly demonstrate security to prospects and stakeholders, you can also use Vanta’s Trust Center. It’s a portal that your stakeholders can access to get a real-time overview of your security and compliance posture.
Here’s an on-demand webinar you can watch to understand how the Trust Center can boost your sales opportunities.
{{cta_simple13="/cta-modules"}} | Questionnaire automation product page
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