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Sick of that Security Questionnaire? Automation is the Answer

Security questionnaires are like your annual physical: necessary, but not necessarily fun. Security questionnaires can be time-consuming, tedious work; sometimes they’re the one thing standing between you and a closed deal. Fortunately, the emergence of AI in the security space has streamlined many day-to-day workflows, and security assessment questionnaires are one of those workflows. So, if you’re tired of spending countless hours, weeks, or even months doing those pesky questionnaires, security questionnaire automation is for you. 

We’ll be going over automated portals and security questionnaire automation tools—two methods that can help your organization spend less time on security questionnaires.

Automated Security Portals Save Time and Energy

Some security questionnaire software solutions create portals that publicly display an organization’s security and compliance posture. These portals showcase security credentials like certifications, attestations, and other compliance reports. For example, TrustCloud’s security portal has a public-facing version. Potential clients can gather any information they need about security programs and internal security practices, especially around customer data. If they need more information, TrustCloud can extend an invitation to share and even includes enhanced security features like NDA click-wrapping. 

By proactively sharing this information, third-party vendors can reduce the number of security questionnaires they receive from prospects and customers, since they’ve provided the necessary information in a secure environment. 

No more emailing sensitive documents, spreadsheets, and screenshots. When stakeholders can easily access information, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to security and earn a high level of trust.

The best solutions pull information directly from your security and compliance program to provide a live portal that you won’t have to maintain. Be wary about those that still rely on knowledge bases, because that means there’s still a degree of manual work to be done.

Security Questionnaire Automation Helps You Close Deals Faster

Even with a security portal, organizations may still need to tackle security questionnaires. What happens when the security review has kicked off and you need to fill out a data security questionnaire ASAP but it’s Friday and you want to enjoy the weekend? 

The answer is to automate your security questionnaire answers with a solution that leverages AI. 

These solutions save you time by:

  • Pre-populating answers that your team can review and approve, dramatically simplifying the response process and reducing response time
  • Making collaboration easier, because it allows you to assign and tag colleagues when and where they’re needed
  • Improving security, by minimizing the need to request or send sensitive information via email

Security Questionnaire Automation: The Tech of Today

As technology evolves, it’s only a matter of time before you make the switch from manual to automated security questionnaire responses. Instead of digging for the security documents you need, or, arguably worse, having to carefully read and answer anywhere between 20 to 100 (or more) questions, wouldn’t you prefer to spend your time a different way?

Other tools act as if they can solve the problem of security questionnaires, but because they have often been designed to solve many different problems (e.g. RFPs, RFIs, DDQs, security questionnaires, etc.), the efficacy is moderate at best. If you’re currently using RFP software to handle security questionnaires, check out our piece on how the two compare.  

To save yourself the heartache of questionnaires, you should:

  1. Be on the lookout for a security portal and security questionnaire automation solution. Most times you’ll find that you will need to opt in for two different tools, but there are partners like TrustCloud that do both.
  2. Evaluate these solutions based on their security features, compliance standards, levels of customization, usability, maintenance, and cost.

 

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Save Time and Pass Security Reviews Faster

Is there a vendor risk management and security questionnaire automation solution out there that provides a holistic portal, allows you to safely share information, uses AI to answer questionnaires, and gives you back your Friday nights? It seems impossible when looking at most of the solutions offered today.

But it is possible, and it’s all done by our tool called TrustShare. No more hassle of maintaining a knowledge base or configuring a tool designed for RFPs, because TrustShare does all that (and more) for you. 

Does it sound too good to be true? Perhaps, but hopefully we can relieve some anxiety by sharing our trust and compliance program to prove that we’re the real deal. And we’ll help you close your deals, fast.

The post Sick of that Security Questionnaire? Automation is the Answer first appeared on TrustCloud.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from TrustCloud authored by Richa Tiwari. Read the original post at: https://www.trustcloud.ai/security-questionnaires/security-questionnaire-automation/