Vendor Security Questionnaire Template: 50 Questions to Ask

A good vendor security questionnaire helps a buyer make a risk decision. It should identify how the service will use data, test the controls that matter for that use, request proportionate evidence, and route exceptions to an accountable reviewer.

Download the 50-question vendor security questionnaire CSV. It includes the question, why it matters, suggested evidence, and the typical answer owner.

This is a starting template, not a universal compliance standard. Adapt it with your security, privacy, legal, procurement, and business owners. Requirements should reflect the service's actual data, access, criticality, and regulatory context.

Start with scope, not 50 questions

Before sending a questionnaire, capture:

• service description and business owner;
• deployment model and environments;
• data categories, sensitivity, and subjects;
• whether the vendor stores, processes, transmits, or only views the data;
• privileged or production access;
• integrations and identity model;
• use of subprocessors;
• countries of processing and required residency;
• operational criticality and acceptable outage;
• use of AI models or automated decision-making;
• target launch date and contract stage.

These facts determine which questions matter. A scheduling tool that receives names and work email addresses should not automatically receive the same diligence as a production processor with health records and administrative access.

A three-tier review model

Tier 1: inherent-risk screening

Use a short intake to determine data sensitivity, access, criticality, regulatory exposure, and AI use. Low-risk services may stop after validated baseline controls and contract terms.

Tier 2: control assessment

Send the relevant sections of this questionnaire. Ask for evidence only where it changes the decision. A “yes” without scope, date, or supporting material is not the same as a validated control.

Tier 3: focused validation

For high-risk services, validate exceptions through architecture review, demonstrations, restricted assurance reports, penetration-test summaries, contract commitments, or direct interviews with control owners.

Avoid collecting sensitive evidence your team cannot protect or review. Use controlled access and retention rules for reports, diagrams, policies, and test results.

Governance and assurance

1. Who is accountable for the information security program, and how is oversight reported to executive leadership?
2. Which security or privacy frameworks does the program follow, and what parts of the service are in scope?
3. Which current independent assessments, certifications, or assurance reports cover the proposed service?
4. How are security policies approved, reviewed, communicated, and enforced?
5. How do you identify, record, treat, accept, and monitor security risks?

Useful evidence can include a program overview, responsibility matrix, certificate with scope, assurance-report coverage statement, policy index, and risk-management methodology. A certificate name alone is incomplete if the buyer cannot tell which product, legal entity, region, or period it covers.

Data inventory and handling

6. What customer data does the service collect, generate, store, process, transmit, or infer?
7. Where is customer data stored and processed, including backups, support access, telemetry, and subprocessors?
8. How is customer data classified and mapped to handling requirements?
9. What retention periods apply to customer content, logs, backups, and account records?
10. How is customer data returned or securely deleted during the service and after termination?

Request a data-flow diagram, data inventory, location list, retention schedule, and deletion process when relevant. Reconcile answers with the privacy notice, data-processing agreement, architecture, and subprocessor list.

Identity and access management

11. Does the service support single sign-on, and which protocols and plans are included?
12. Does the service support automated provisioning and deprovisioning, such as SCIM?
13. Can administrators enforce multi-factor authentication for all applicable users?
14. How are workforce, support, and privileged accounts approved, reviewed, and removed?
15. Which roles and permissions can customers configure, and are administrative actions logged?

Validate the exact workflow. “SSO supported” may mean SAML is available only on an enterprise plan; “MFA available” may not mean administrators can enforce it; “role-based access” may offer only an admin/member split.

Useful evidence includes identity documentation, role matrix, access-review procedure, deprovisioning workflow, and a demonstration of customer administration and audit history.

Encryption and key management

16. How is customer data encrypted in transit, and where can unencrypted transmission occur?
17. How is customer data encrypted at rest across primary storage, replicas, backups, and attachments?
18. How are encryption keys generated, stored, rotated, accessed, and retired?
19. Are customer-managed keys or tenant-specific keys supported, and under what conditions?

Ask for architecture or cryptography documentation that names the covered components. Algorithm names are useful only when the answer also explains scope and key management.

Secure development and application security

20. How are security requirements included in product design and change planning?
21. What code review and automated security testing occur before release?
22. How are open-source and third-party software dependencies inventoried and monitored?
23. How are secrets prevented from entering source code and protected in build and runtime systems?
24. How are production changes authorized, tested, deployed, and rolled back?
25. When was the proposed service last penetration tested, what scope was covered, and how are findings remediated?

Relevant evidence includes a secure-development lifecycle overview, testing standards, software-component inventory approach, change-management procedure, and penetration-test attestation or executive summary. Do not request raw exploit details unless your organization has a defined need and handling process.

Infrastructure and vulnerability management

26. Which cloud, hosting, and network services support the proposed solution, and how are tenant environments separated?
27. How are systems hardened and configuration drift detected?
28. How are vulnerabilities discovered across infrastructure, applications, containers, endpoints, and dependencies?
29. What remediation targets apply by severity, and how is overdue risk handled?
30. How are employee endpoints and administrative devices protected?
31. How are backups protected from unauthorized alteration or deletion?

Evidence may include architecture diagrams, shared-responsibility statements, hardening standards, vulnerability-management policy, aggregated remediation metrics, endpoint-control overview, and backup architecture.

The buyer should focus on residual risk. A vulnerability scan does not prove that findings are prioritized, fixed, exception-managed, and retested.

Logging, detection, and incident response

32. Which security and administrative events are logged, and how long are logs retained?
33. Can customers access or export audit logs, and which events are included?
34. How are security events monitored, triaged, escalated, and investigated?
35. How is the incident-response plan tested, and when was the last exercise?
36. How and when will customers be notified of an incident affecting their data or service?
37. How are root cause, corrective actions, and lessons learned tracked after an incident?

Useful evidence includes a logging catalog, sample customer audit events, monitoring overview, incident plan, exercise summary, notification terms, and post-incident process. Contract language should match the operational answer for notification timing and method.

Resilience and business continuity

38. What recovery time and recovery point objectives apply to the proposed service?
39. How often are backups restored or disaster-recovery procedures tested?
40. Which critical dependencies and concentration risks are included in continuity planning?
41. How are customers informed during a material service disruption?

Ask for the service-specific objectives and latest test scope—not only a generic continuity policy. Check whether recovery targets are contractual, designed targets, or historical observations.

Privacy and third-party risk

42. What roles do the parties have under applicable privacy laws, and what contract terms support those roles?
43. How does the service support access, correction, deletion, restriction, and export requests when applicable?
44. Which subprocessors can access or process customer data, and how are changes communicated?
45. How are subprocessors assessed, contracted, monitored, and offboarded?
46. Which cross-border transfer mechanisms and supplementary measures apply?

Evidence can include a data-processing agreement, privacy feature documentation, current subprocessor register, vendor-risk procedure, transfer assessment, and deletion workflow. Legal counsel should validate jurisdiction-specific requirements.

AI and model governance

47. Does the service use customer inputs, outputs, or metadata to train or improve shared models?
48. Which model providers and AI subprocessors receive customer data, in which regions, and for how long?
49. What controls reduce unauthorized disclosure, prompt injection, unsafe tool use, and unsupported output?
50. Can customers disable AI features, restrict data sources, review citations, and require human approval before consequential use?

AI answers should be specific to the proposed configuration. “We do not train on customer data” does not answer whether an external model provider temporarily retains prompts, whether abuse monitoring applies, or whether product telemetry is used for improvement.

Request a data-flow view for AI features, model-provider list, retention statement, feature controls, evaluation approach, and human-review design where appropriate.

Evidence map by question category

How to review answers

Use four separate fields:

1. Answer: the vendor's description.
2. Evidence status: not requested, requested, received, validated, insufficient, or expired.
3. Control result: meets, partially meets, does not meet, not applicable, or unknown.
4. Risk decision: accept, mitigate, contract, validate, escalate, or reject.

Do not convert every “No” into a failure. A control may not apply to the service, or another control may reduce the same risk. Likewise, a “Yes” is not automatically sufficient when scope and evidence are unclear.

A simple risk rating

For each material finding, record:

• affected data, system, or process;
• threat or failure scenario;
• likelihood rationale;
• impact rationale;
• existing vendor control;
• buyer-side control;
• proposed remediation or contract term;
• accountable risk owner;
• due date and residual-risk decision.

The business owner should understand the decision. Security can analyze risk, but acceptance must follow your organization's authority model.

Follow-up questions that improve weak answers

When an answer is vague, ask:

• Which service, plan, environment, legal entity, and region does this cover?
• Is the control currently available in the proposed scope?
• Is it enabled by default, customer-configurable, or operated by the vendor?
• When was the evidence produced, and what period does it cover?
• Which components or data types are excluded?
• Who reviews exceptions, and how long can they remain open?
• Can you demonstrate the control with our proposed configuration?
• Will you commit to the requirement in the contract?

These questions are usually more useful than adding another 200 generic controls.

Common questionnaire mistakes

Sending every vendor the same giant questionnaire

This increases low-quality answers and review time. Start with inherent risk and send only relevant sections.

Treating certifications as interchangeable

Record the standard, report or certificate type, scope, period, auditor, entity, and relevant exceptions. Do not turn an unverified marketing badge into a validated control.

Mixing unknown with no

If public documentation or the questionnaire does not confirm a control, record Unknown. “Not verified” is not evidence that the capability is absent.

Requesting evidence nobody will examine

Every evidence request should have a reviewer, purpose, storage location, access rule, and retention period.

Ignoring product tiers and configuration

Confirm that SSO, SCIM, audit logs, retention, regional hosting, support, and security features are included in the quoted plan.

Letting questionnaire and contract disagree

Reconcile notification, deletion, residency, subprocessor, recovery, and audit commitments before signature.

When to automate the workflow

A spreadsheet can work for low volume. Automation becomes useful when teams repeatedly need to:

• reuse approved answers without losing ownership and review dates;
• ingest spreadsheets, documents, and portals;
• route questions to security, privacy, legal, and product owners;
• attach evidence with access controls;
• identify stale or conflicting answers;
• preserve an audit trail;
• publish approved trust content;
• measure turnaround and recurring gaps.

Use our security questionnaire automation comparison and DDQ automation tools guide to shortlist systems. Test them on your real questionnaires and evidence workflow, not a vendor-curated demo alone.

Final review checklist

• Service scope, data flow, access, regions, criticality, and AI use are documented.
• Only relevant question sections were sent.
• Every material answer has an owner and review status.
• Evidence scope and date were checked.
• Unknowns, partial controls, and exceptions remain visible.
• Product tier and configuration match the commercial offer.
• Questionnaire, architecture, privacy terms, and contract agree.
• Findings have risk owners, actions, and due dates.
• Sensitive evidence has appropriate access and retention.
• The final decision and residual risk are documented.

Download the vendor security questionnaire CSV and tailor it before use. The goal is a defensible decision, not a perfect-looking spreadsheet.