The 10 Most Common Questions in Security Questionnaires

Why These 10 Questions Always Come Up

After analyzing thousands of security questionnaires, one finding stands out: 80% of questionnaires ask the same fundamental questions. Understanding them and preparing solid answers will save you considerable time and accelerate your sales cycles.

Question 1: How Do You Encrypt Data?

Model Answer

"All data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.3. Encryption keys are managed via AWS KMS / Google Cloud KMS with automatic rotation every 12 months. Backups are also encrypted."

Question 2: How Do You Manage Access Controls?

Model Answer

"We apply the principle of least privilege with role-based access control (RBAC). Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is mandatory for all employees. Access rights are reviewed quarterly."

Question 3: What Is Your Incident Response Process?

Model Answer

"Our incident response plan follows the NIST framework covering detection, containment, eradication, and recovery. Clients are notified within 72 hours of any data breach affecting them."

Question 4: Do You Have a Business Continuity Plan?

"Yes. Our BCP covers infrastructure failure, cyberattack, and natural disaster scenarios. RPO is 1 hour, RTO is 4 hours. Tested annually."

Question 5: What Is Your Data Retention Policy?

"Client data is retained for the contract duration. Upon termination, data is deleted within 30 days and purged from backups within 90 days."

Question 6: Do You Use Subprocessors?

"Yes. Each subprocessor is assessed annually. A DPA is signed with each. The list is available on our Trust Center."

Question 7: Do You Conduct Penetration Tests?

"Annual external penetration tests by an independent firm. Critical vulnerabilities fixed within 48h. Executive summary available under NDA."

Question 8: Are You ISO 27001 / SOC 2 Certified?

"We hold a SOC 2 Type II report covering Security and Availability. Reports available under NDA via our Trust Center."

Question 9: How Do You Train Employees on Security?

"All employees receive security training at onboarding and annual awareness training. Quarterly phishing simulations are conducted."

Question 10: Where Is Data Hosted?

"Data is hosted in the European Union (Google Cloud, europe-west1 / Belgium). No data transfers outside the EU. GDPR compliant, DPA available."

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