Let’s be sincere – no person likes safety questionnaires. To distributors, they’re irritating workflow interruptions, at all times seeming to reach on the most inconvenient occasions. To companies, they mark the primary stage of an extended, drawn-out course of the place distributors should be constantly pestered to finish them.
On this publish, we define three confirmed methods for streamlining the safety questionnaire course of to remove stress for each the companies that ship them and the distributors receiving them.
Find out how Cybersecurity simplifies Vendor Threat Administration >
1. Create a Central Repository of Widespread Safety Questionnaire Queries
Many safety questionnaires are inclined to repeat the identical forms of questions. For distributors, this implies a major period of time is wasted finishing the identical responses repeatedly. By saving evaluation questionnaire responses in a central repository, safety group members can copy and paste earlier safety questionnaire responses and keep away from the time-consuming effort of addressing every repeated query.
As a result of any query may doubtlessly be repeated, ideally, all questionnaire responses must be saved to compress future response processes. This may be executed in a Google Spreadsheet, the place every response is saved in a sheet devoted to every questionnaire kind.
Right here’s an instance.
After getting an honest library of saved responses throughout a number of sheets, you’ll be able to cross-reference new threat assessments with this spreadsheet to examine whether or not you might have any related solutions saved. To do that, open the search perform (Command+F for Mac and Ctrl+F for Home windows) and begin typing the query you’re querying.
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If it’s saved within the sheet, your entire cell by which the query is saved will probably be highlighted.
Google Sheets doesn’t provide a easy strategy of password-protecting sheets. The easisest method to management entry is to set the Sharing settings to solely members of your group.
To expedite the evaluate of questionnaire submissions, they need to be assigned to material specialists (SMEs) in every safety class being queried.
Although this methodology of storing a library of earlier responses is free, it’s not very user-friendly and definitely not splendid when scaling your Vendor Threat Administration program. The search course of in Google Sheets could be very inflexible. You possibly can solely establish actual phrase matches, which isn’t very useful in most real-life situations, as many data safety questionnaires have slight variations of the identical forms of questions.
A great various is to make use of a Vendor Threat Administration answer with in-built questionnaire autofill options, equivalent to Cybersecurity.
How Cybersecurity Can Assist
Cybersecurity’s AI Autofill function gives questionnaire response options based mostly on a vendor’s earlier questionnaire responses – assuaging the headache of manually copying and pasting questionnaire data saved in spreadsheets.
This function addresses the frustration of delayed questionnaire submissions
Cybersecurity’s AI autofill function suggesting a response based mostly on referenced supply information.Cybersecurity’s AI Autofill function removes the time-consuming guide processes generally related to safety questionnaires. Giving your Vendor Threat Administration program a major aggressive benefit.
By serving to service suppliers full repeated questionnaires sooner, Cybersecurity’s AI auto-fill function provides extra time again to distributors – time that may be higher spent onnew questionnaire gadgets, enhancing the standard of solutions, and responding to follow-up inquiries.
Watch this video for an outline of Cybersecurity’s AI Autofill function.
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2. Share Info Proactively
If, as a vendor, you solely share particulars about your safety posture when prompted with a safety questionnaire, you’re following a reactive strategy to questionnaire administration, which isn’t environment friendly. A reactive strategy assumes your safety groups will at all times have the capability to deal with incoming questionnaires promptly, and except you at present dwell in a cybersecurity utopia, that is not often the case.
A proactive strategy entails making essentially the most up-to-date details about your cybersecurity efforts available to present and potential companions, permitting distributors to construct belief of their partnerships. The small print may contain accomplished safety assessments, certifications, safety practices, and some other related details about a corporation’s safety.
In a third-party cybersecurity relationship, a proactive strategy reduces the variety of safety questionnaires a vendor wants to finish.
As a result of a proactive strategy gives enterprise companions with better consciousness of the cybersecurity efforts of their distributors, this technique reduces the variety of safety questionnaires a vendor must compete.
A proactive technique additionally demonstrates confidence in your safety controls, safety framework, and general skill to guard the shopper information your group has been entrusted with.
How Cybersecurity Can Assist
Cybersecurity permits distributors to proactively inform their companions about their cybersecurity efforts by means of its Belief Web page function (previously know as Shared Profile). This function permits distributors to host data related to their safety posture on a devoted web page, which may embody accomplished safety questionnaires, certifications, safety insurance policies, or some other related safety and compliance paperwork.
Entry to Belief Pages can simply be managed with NDAs and entry request administration to guard delicate information hosted on Belief Pages.
Offering accomplished safety questionnaires to potential companions additionally reduces time spent on cybersecurity due diligence, permitting gross sales groups to shut offers sooner.
Proactively sharing accomplished threat assessments expedites safety critiques by potential companions, lowering the gross sales course of and gross sales cycles.
Cybersecurity removes the burden of manually managing entry to an inside library of at all times up-to-date safety data by permitting distributors to host their safety program data in a single centralized location.
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3. Enhance Collaboration Between Vendor Threat Evaluation Events
By lowering time spent on repeated questions and proactively sharing safety posture data with enterprise companions, you’ll have transitioned from a reactive to a proactive strategy to safety questionnaire administration.
Transitioning from a reactive to a proactive strategy to Vendor Threat Administration is essentially the most vital shift, because it makes the distinction between a vendor relationship and a tough one.
Although this alteration is sufficient to elevate your safety questionnaire administration nicely above common efforts, it may be additional optimized by streamlining collaborations between all concerned events.
Probably the most irritating areas of collaboration within the vendor threat evaluation course of embody:
Maintaining observe of questionnaire response adjustments – With out realizing which questionnaire responses have been charged, companies can’t stay knowledgeable about every vendor’s most recent safety posture data.Inefficient remediation request processes – Detected third-party safety dangers have to be actioned ASAP to cut back the chance of seashores. An absence of an environment friendly remediation request course of means breach-facilitating vulnerabilities stay unaddressed – typically till cybercriminals uncover and exploit them.E-mail collaborations – All questionnaire-related queries are usually addressed by way of electronic mail, the place they often get missed. One other main frustration of electronic mail collaborations is that they usually require prolonged explanations to contextualize the difficulty.How Cybersecurity Can Assist
Cybersecurity is constantly growing new options to assist companies and their distributors undertake a collaborative strategy to safety questionnaire administration. A few of the present options out there on the Cybersecurity platform embody the next:
Watch the video under to find out how Cybersecurity streamlines vendor collaboration to make the chance evaluation course of extra environment friendly.
1. Questionnaire Adjustments ViewThe function addresses the difficulty of events lacking questionnaire response adjustments, leading to an inaccurate understanding of a vendor’s safety posture.
The questionnaire adjustments view on the Cybersecurity platform highlights the entire responses which have been modified, maintaining you constantly knowledgeable of every vendor’s most recent safety dangers.
Cybersecurity’s questionnaire adjustments view indicating which responses have been modified.
See Cybersecurity’s questionnaire adjustments view function in motion >
2. Streamlined Remediation RequestsThis function addresses the frustration of poor remediation administration packages that overwhelm safety groups.
Cybersecurity’s Remediation Requests function lets you immediately request remediations based mostly on dangers detected in automated scans and accomplished threat assessments. Cybersecurity additionally helps Zapier integrations, enabling you to create customized notification sequences based mostly in your distinctive remediation workflow.
See Cybersecurity’s remediation function in motion >
3. In-Line Questionnaire Correspondence & AnnotationsThis function addresses the frustration of disjointed communication when corresponding by way of electronic mail
4. AIEnhance for Clearer CommunicationThis function addresses the frustration of unclear threat evaluation responses
Cybersecurity’s AIEnhance function leverages AI expertise to assist distributors reply to questionnaires sooner with out negatively impacting response high quality. This function is the primary of its form as it will probably remodel a set of bullet factors, or a roughly written draft, into full sentences, with only a single click on.
Cybersecurity’s AIEnhance function.
