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Security questionnaire
The list of questions a buyer's security team sends before they sign.
What it means
A security questionnaire is the list of questions a prospective customer's security team sends before they will sign. It usually arrives as a spreadsheet, and it asks how you handle access, encryption, testing, logging, staff and suppliers.
Some companies reuse a standard form, such as the Cloud Security Alliance CAIQ. Many send their own list, assembled from previous incidents and previous vendors.
Why it matters
Answering well is a sales function as much as a security one. A questionnaire that sits for three weeks delays a contract, and an evasive answer invites a second round.
Your answers also have to stay true as the product changes. Something you wrote confidently a year ago becomes a problem when nobody updated the pack, and a careful buyer finds exactly that discrepancy. Volume causes the other trouble. Once you have a few enterprise customers these arrive continuously, and answering each from scratch costs days every month.
How it shows up
The questions that cause trouble are rarely technical. They ask about process: who approves access, how often you test, what happens when somebody leaves, how you would tell a customer about an incident.
Keep a written pack you actually maintain, with a date beside each answer. That turns a fortnight of scrambling into an afternoon, and it shows you where your honest answer is still no. Attach evidence rather than prose. A dated report naming what somebody tested and what they found settles several questions at once, and often stops the follow-up round. Write in plain language too. A reviewer reading forty of these a week rewards the vendor who answers clearly and distrusts the one who writes around the question.
Questions people ask
Security questionnaire, answered
How long does a security questionnaire take to answer?
The first one is slow. A hundred question form takes several hours of drafting, and a custom enterprise list runs much longer.
Later ones go quickly if you kept the answers. Deadlines are usually short, so the maintained pack matters more than the writing.
What is the difference between SIG and CAIQ?
Both are standard forms. The CAIQ comes from the Cloud Security Alliance and maps to its Cloud Controls Matrix.
The SIG comes from Shared Assessments, runs longer, and has a lighter version for smaller reviews.
Can we refuse to fill one in?
You can, and sometimes you should when the form plainly does not fit what you sell. Expect it to cost you the deal or a long conversation.
Offering a completed standard form plus a testing report often satisfies a buyer faster than arguing about the questions.
Do we need a certification before we can answer these?
No. Buyers ask for certifications because they are quick to check, but a clear answer with evidence attached carries weight on its own.
Cyberlop holds no compliance certifications, and we would rather write that down than imply otherwise.
Does a testing report answer the security testing questions?
It answers several: what somebody tested, when, what they found and what you fixed afterwards.
It does not answer the questions about staff, suppliers or incident handling. Cyberlop produces a dated report per run, and the rest of the pack stays yours to write.
Related
Terms that sit next to this one
Penetration test
A time-boxed engagement where skilled people attack your systems by hand.
Encryption at rest
Stored data scrambled so a stolen disk is useless without the key.
Single sign-on
One company identity for many applications, granted and removed in one place.
Vulnerability disclosure
Telling an organisation about a flaw, and the policy that makes it safe.
Stuck on the testing questions?
A dated report showing what we tested, what we found and what you fixed answers several of those questions at once. Cyberlop produces one per run. Get in touch about yours.
Or start with a $199 pilot on one application: thirty days, success criteria agreed before day one, credited against the annual if you convert.