3 Solutions to Tackle Security Questionnaires with Efficiency and Accuracy

It’s no secret that security professionals are under significant stress at work. A recent industry report stated that 55% of cybersecurity professionals say they experience stress at work half the time, and 21% of cases lead them to consider leaving the profession.

Why is burnout so common in cybersecurity? It comes down to several factors, including a pressure to be “always on”, how rapidly threats are evolving in the current tech landscape, and the need for security professionals to constantly context switch as issues arise.

For enterprises, the burden of security questionnaires often falls on security teams. While critical to business growth, security questionnaires can be time consuming, taking hours of valuable time from already overextended security teams and adding to employee burnout.

Security questionnaires aren't going anywhere — they’re a crucial step in building assurance with both customers and vendors. So, how can security teams streamline security questionnaires without stretching their team too thin? The answer is automation.

Streamline Security Questionnaires with Automation

Security questionnaires are lengthy due diligence documents that ensure you have the processes and policies in place to protect the data and sensitive information of your customers and partners from bad actors. Security questionnaires can contain hundreds (if not thousands) of questions especially for large enterprises.

Common topics covered in security questionnaires include:

• Application security: Whether an organization has an up-to-date SSL certificate
• Audit and compliance: Whether an organization is compliant with industry standards like HIPAA or PCI DSS
• Business continuity: Whether an organization has systems in place to continue operations during an outage
• Disaster recovery: How long it would take to notify customers of a breach and how the organization would address it
• Encryption: How often an organization reviews its encryption policy, what method it uses to encrypt data in transit, and whether data is encrypted at rest
• Passwords: Whether an organization requires complex passwords and if they need to be rotated periodically
• Access control: How well an organization manages who has access to what data
• Physical security: What physical security measures are in place, such as badge access control and surveillance
• Incident response plan: How prepared an organization is to deal with security breaches

Because questionnaires cover so many facets of an organization, they almost always require information or input from a variety of teams. That’s why seamless, cross-team knowledge sharing is critical to completing questionnaires accurately and efficiently. With enterprise processes and policies constantly evolving, it’s vital that shared information is regularly updated so that questionnaire responses are accurate and up to date.

There are two opposing forces at play when it comes to security questionnaires: speed and accuracy.

• Speed: Questionnaires are part of the sales cycle. Any delays in questionnaire responses can make or break closing deals. If your security questionnaire process is broken, it could significantly impact the growth of the business. Furthermore, security teams don’t have spare time, and any time that’s spent on security questionnaires is taking time away from proactive risk mitigation.
• Accuracy: Ensuring that your questionnaire responses are compliant, accurate, and up to date is absolutely critical. The information you provide in questionnaires helps to build trust with your customers and vendors. If responses are inaccurate or outdated, it could damage trust over time.

In order to achieve both speed and accuracy in your security questionnaire process, automation is necessary. However, not all automation is created equal. Automation works best when it's supplemented by human oversight. At SecurityPal, we pair cutting-edge AI technology with a team of certified human analysts to streamline security questionnaires with efficiency and accuracy. Here’s how we do it.

Three SecurityPal Solutions to Tackle Security Questionnaires

Questionnaire Concierge

Your 24/7 “Always On” Concierge for complex and enterprise Security Questionnaires, Security Review Portals, and Documentation Requests.

SecurityPal pioneered the fully enabled, white-glove Concierge offering for security questionnaires and security reviews. With Questionnaire Concierge, you can easily route any security, privacy, or GRC questionnaire to a certified team of SecurityPal analysts, either through a secure email or our easy-to-use web application. SecurityPal can streamline your global security review process and expedite questionnaire completion, from weeks to days (or faster!).

Key Capabilities:

• Certified Security Analysts: Every inquiry is meticulously handled by accredited professionals.
• Multilingual Support: Facilitate seamless interaction across your global operations.
• Real-time Tracking: Monitor the status of numerous questionnaires and requests effortlessly.
• Flexible, Secure Submissions: Integrate seamlessly into your current workflows.

Knowledge Library

A robust security, GRC, and product knowledge library with an AI-powered “librarian” for continuous library refresh.

The SecurityPal Knowledge Library is your single source of truth for Customer Assurance documentation. The Knowledge Library offers powerful features to store, manage, and share your Q&A pairs, policy and posture documents, evidence, and tags. SecurityPal’s dynamic AI-powered application, augmented by expert security analysts, ensures your Knowledge Library is continually updated to align with your existing posture changes at the ground level.

Key Capabilities:

• Review Cycles: Implement review cycles for your Q&A pairs and documents
  to keep your security posture up-to-date and reliable.
• Advanced Tagging: Efficiently organize and categorize data with our enhanced tagging system.
• Assigning to Owners: Allocate individual responsibility for Q&A pairs by assigning
  them to specific owners.
• Version History: Easily track changes and updates with our new version history
  feature for all Q&A pairs and documents.

Copilot

A trusted Copilot for all security, compliance, or privacy-related questions to help you deliver fast and high-quality customer assurance.

Copilot is your AI-powered sidekick for security, compliance, and privacy questionnaires. Pose any query in natural language, and SecurityPal Copilot swiftly crafts accurate, evidence-based responses. You can ask specific questions from Copilot or upload a spreadsheet of questions and get a response back immediately. It’s a great way to quickly knock out small requests from companies inquiring about your security posture, with minimal manual effort from your internal resources.

Key Capabilities:

• AI-Driven Assistance: Leverage AI for developing targeted, precise security responses.
• Bulk Question Handling: Tackle multiple queries efficiently.
• Multilingual Capabilities: Draft responses in various languages for global reach including Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and more.
• Knowledge Library Integration: Ensure consistency and accuracy with seamless library integration.

Streamline Security Reviews with SecurityPal

Ready to streamline security reviews with dedicated workflows, AI-powered automation, and trusted analysts? Contact SecurityPal today to learn more about how Questionnaire Concierge, Knowledge Library, and Copilot can work together to help you tackle security questionnaires with speed and accuracy.