Security Questionnaire Automation: Why Automation Leads to Inaccuracy

According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million —a 10% increase over last year and the highest total ever. With such high stakes, it’s no surprise that security and risk management is the number one tech initiative driving IT investments, according to CIO.

With an ever-growing threat landscape, many CISOs are investing in automation to tackle time-consuming security and GRC tasks like Security Questionnaires. However, layers of automation and application programming interface (API) data links increase the chances that Security Questionnaires will be incomplete, inaccurate, or poor quality.

So, where are these automation breakdowns happening?

Integration Flaws

At the root of these automation breakdowns are SaaS artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools that don’t have the nuance to address an ever-evolving security landscape or your security posture. While automation tools can help to tackle rote tasks, they simply don’t have the data structure to accommodate the hundreds of different formats and portals that are required to complete a Security Questionnaire. It’s impossible to build a data structure around required inputs you may have never seen before. Using automation alone can lead to low quality, incomplete, or inaccurate questionnaires that can damage trust with your partners and stagnate business growth.

According to a survey by D3 Security, 29% of respondents said limited capability for integration with existing tools was one of the greatest risks with security automation. The lack of integration between tools results in more inefficient connections between automation software.  Companies have to invest more time and bandwidth monitoring and updating  these systems to make sure they play nice together and double-checking every entry.

To put it simply, there’s probably a good reason IBM Security found that only 25% of organizations have fully deployed automated security systems.

Data Decay

Systems that run solely on external inputs will only ever be as good as the data that’s entered. Many organizations make the mistake of thinking automated systems are as simple as plugging in a spreadsheet of data and hitting play. However, regular database maintenance is necessary to not only keep data current to your organization but also to keep your data secure amid changes in the security landscape.

The reality is that automated systems often lack the checks and balances necessary to maintain data independent of human intervention. Data decay results in inaccurate questionnaire responses and compliance failures. Ultimately, that means lost deals, missed quotas, inaccurate sales forecasts, and poor external trust signaling. According to Ponemon Institute research, 33% of senior information technology professionals say an increase in compliance burden is one of the main factors that could cause a decline in their security posture.

Not only do fully automated Security Questionnaire systems require regular maintenance, but you need visibility into the data to maintain it as well. According to the D3 survey, 48% of respondents said one of the greatest risks with automation is the fact that there is a lack of openness and access to the data from third-party tools. Imagine trying to manage your own data without being able to access it.

Accelerates an Already Failed Process

According to CIO, 76% of CIOs say it's challenging to find the balance between business innovation and operational excellence. That has never been so true as when applying automation to Security Questionnaires.

When it comes to Security Questionnaires, there is no way to create a template for every use case because every questionnaire is tailored to the organizations involved. Not only that, but policies and procedures have to keep up with constantly changing cybersecurity protocols.

While Security Questionnaires are time-consuming and tedious, automation can’t evolve fast enough, ML can’t learn quick enough, and AI isn’t intelligent enough for a process that is so nuanced. Automation alone may be able expedite security reviews, but at the cost of compliance and accuracy.

Efficiency and Security: You Can Have it All

Automation alone cannot streamline high-quality security reviews, and often leave InfoSec teams doing heavier lifting on the backend to correct AI’s mistakes or fill in gaps from nuanced security questions. Connecting siloed workflows and disjointed tech stack APIs to create a system of record for security data is the right idea, but how you do that is equally important.

The key to an efficient sales cycle is streamlining multiple departments’ data inputs to complete questionnaires in a timely way. And keeping up with the shifting security landscape is essential to maintaining compliance and a robust security posture. Essentially, you need the speed and ease of effective automation married with the expertise and accuracy of human specialists.

At SecurityPal, our AI-powered technology is supported by a team of 150+ certified security analysts. These dedicated experts ensure that your Knowledge Library is up to date, review each questionnaire for compliance and accuracy, and help to keep your team ahead of evolving regulation. Our specialists are well versed in every nuance of the landscape and have completed over 80% of Fortune 500 Security Questionnaires. Book a meeting today to see how you can save time and just get to close-won faster.