11 Vendor Security Questionnaires for IT Vendor Assessment (2026)

Every vendor you onboard seems to include a different questionnaire request. Each framework claims to finally capture third-party risk, yet the options overlap and rarely make the choice clear. Send the wrong one, and you either overwhelm a low-risk supplier or wave through a high-risk vendor.

A survey found that vendor security questionnaires are now the most popular method among security teams for assessing third-party risk, with 84% of respondents actively using them. If you’re using security questionnaires as your primary assessment method, you need to choose the right one for each type of vendor.

This guide compares 11 of the most widely used questionnaires and explains when to choose each. You'll get a side-by-side comparison and short summaries of each standard, plus a short framework for matching a questionnaire to a vendor's risk. The goal is a faster, more defensible decision.

What a vendor security questionnaire is

A vendor security questionnaire is a structured set of questions you send a third party to document its security controls, policies, and compliance posture before you share data or connect systems. The vendor's answers give you comparable evidence for deciding how much access that vendor should get.

Treat questionnaires as one stage of a third-party risk management program, not the whole thing. Vendors report their own answers, and a questionnaire captures a single moment in time, so only continuous monitoring and external evidence confirm whether a vendor's claims prove true.

A vendor security questionnaire comparison

Use this table to shortlist the right standard, then read the fuller summary below:

11 vendor security questionnaires for IT vendor assessment

The list runs from broad, enterprise-grade standards to narrower, regulation-specific ones. Each entry covers what the questionnaire is, who maintains it, the kind of vendor it fits best, and one situation where it's the wrong questionnaire.

SIG and SIG Lite

Shared Assessments maintains the SIG questionnaire, a widely used standard for evaluating vendors. It spans many risk domains, including cybersecurity, privacy, and business resilience. That breadth makes it a strong default when you want one consistent assessment across a large vendor base.

SIG comes in tiers: SIG Core covers the full depth, and SIG Lite distills the key questions into a shorter set. 

Use SIG Core for higher-risk vendors, and SIG Lite when the relationship carries less risk. For the smallest suppliers, like a single-seat tool with no data access, even SIG Lite can be more than the engagement needs. A short internal checklist is usually enough.

CAIQ

The Cloud Security Alliance publishes the CAIQ, which shows you what a cloud provider does behind the abstraction. Vendors answer a series of yes-or-no questions, which gives you a consistent read on cloud security posture.

CAIQ maps to the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix, a set of control objectives spanning cloud security domains. 

It suits infrastructure as well as software services. It's a good fit for SaaS and cloud vendors, but a poor fit for on-premises-only suppliers.

VSA questionnaire

A coalition of companies created the VSA questionnaire and structured it to reduce vendors' response burden. It includes fewer questions than broader questionnaires, so completion typically takes less time. The alliance issues two free questionnaires and refreshes them annually. 

VSA-Full supports a deeper security review, while VSA-Core pairs the most critical security questions with a privacy section. That section covers United States breach notification along with CCPA and GDPR.

It fits cases where you need a no-cost assessment with less response effort. A customer or regulator mandate for a specific framework would override it.

NIST SP 800-171 questionnaire

NIST SP 800-171 defines how nonfederal organizations should protect Controlled Unclassified Information. A questionnaire built on it fits government contractors and their suppliers.

Its security requirements are stringent, and vendors that meet them are well positioned for related standards. That alignment covers much of NIST SP 800-53. NIST SP 800-53, in turn, underpins the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). FISMA is a federal information-security law; FedRAMP authorizes secure cloud services for government use.

That assessment depth also lowers supply chain attack risk across a vendor network handling sensitive data. 

If you're searching for a NIST vendor risk assessment questionnaire, this questionnaire is usually the one. It's more than a consumer-data-only vendor with no federal connection would need.

ISO 27001 questionnaire

ISO and IEC publish ISO/IEC 27001, a widely recognized information security standard. A questionnaire based on it checks whether a vendor runs a systematic information security management system, and it looks for structured risk assessment and treatment rather than one-off controls. 

The standard suits vendors that hold or are pursuing ISO 27001 certification, and teams across multiple regions use it widely.

When you only need a fast read on a low-risk vendor, a full ISO 27001 review is heavier than the situation calls for.

HECVAT 4

The HECVAT 4 standardizes how colleges and universities review their vendors. EDUCAUSE and the higher education security community developed it. The consistency helps institutions and vendors avoid rebuilding an assessment for every engagement.

In 2025, HECVAT 4 was released, which consolidates the Full, Lite, and On-Premise questionnaires into a unified questionnaire. HECVAT Lite has been replaced with a filtered view within HECVAT 4, called the Core 60.

Outside higher education, a general-purpose questionnaire is usually more efficient.

CIS Critical Security Controls questionnaire

The CIS maintains the CIS Critical Security Controls, which is a prioritized set of defensive actions organized so teams know what to tackle first. The earliest controls represent foundational cyber hygiene.

The controls map cleanly to several major frameworks:

• NIST Cybersecurity Framework: A voluntary framework for managing cybersecurity risk.
• NIST SP 800-53: Federal security and privacy controls.
• ISO 27000 series: International information security standards.
• PCI DSS and HIPAA: Payment-card and healthcare data protection rules.

Those mappings let teams use a CIS-based questionnaire as an initial technical baseline, then map the results to other compliance frameworks. It works best as a starting point, not a standalone compliance attestation.

PCI DSS questionnaire

PCI DSS covers any vendor that stores, processes, or transmits payment card data. The PCI Security Standards Council maintains it.

A PCI DSS questionnaire often takes the form of a Self-Assessment Questionnaire tailored to how the vendor handles card data, and it confirms that the controls protecting that data are in place. 

Use it whenever cardholder data is in scope. For vendors with no card-data exposure, it adds process without adding assurance.

GDPR questionnaire

GDPR is the European Union's data protection law, which reaches any vendor that processes the personal data of EU residents, wherever the vendor operates.

A GDPR questionnaire checks how a vendor collects and stores personal data and the safeguards around it. It also confirms whether the vendor can meet obligations like breach notification within 72 hours.

Penalties for noncompliance can be €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher.

Send this questionnaire whenever EU personal data flows through a vendor. When no EU personal data is in scope, it isn't necessary.

CCPA questionnaire

CCPA gives California residents rights over how businesses collect and use their personal information. Also known as AB 375, it applies beyond state lines, much like GDPR.

A CCPA questionnaire evaluates how a vendor handles that personal information and supports those privacy rights. 

It's the right choice for vendors that touch California residents' data. If a broader privacy questionnaire such as GDPR already covers the vendor, a separate review may be redundant.

Modern Slavery questionnaire

A Modern Slavery questionnaire addresses supply-chain risk that technical assessments miss. It aligns with Australia's Modern Slavery Act 2018 and the United Kingdom's Modern Slavery Act 2015.

It helps you identify forced-labor and human-rights risks across suppliers, improve transparency, and target areas for deeper due diligence. It matters most for organizations with modern-slavery reporting duties and complex supply chains. For a purely technical security triage, it sits outside the scope.

How to choose the right vendor security questionnaire

The best questionnaire matches the vendor's risk profile and the data and framework requirements involved. A few questions make the choice quicker:

• What data and systems will the vendor access, and how sensitive are they?
• Which frameworks does this vendor's industry or your own contracts require?
• Is the vendor cloud-based, a payment processor, an EU data processor, or a government supplier?
• How critical is this vendor to your operations if it goes offline?
• Does the vendor's inherent risk justify a full questionnaire, or will a lighter tier suffice?

Match the questionnaire to the vendor's risk tier

Start by tiering vendors according to the data they access and how critical they are, then match the questionnaire's depth to that tier.

For a low-risk vendor with no sensitive-data access, a lightweight option gathers what you need without stalling onboarding:

• SIG Lite: A trimmed version of SIG for lower-risk vendors.
• HECVAT Core 60: An expedited review for higher-education vendors.
• VSA-Core: The most critical security questions plus privacy.
• A CIS baseline: The core technical controls every vendor should meet.

Reserve the full, framework-specific questionnaires for high-risk vendors, and align each one to the standard your customers or regulators require. Right-sizing the questionnaire keeps the process defensible and keeps vendors responsive.

A questionnaire is a point-in-time snapshot

Security teams know the limit: only 4% say their questionnaires reflect real-world risk. Meanwhile, 44% are running more than 100 assessments a year.

Continuous monitoring gives you an always-on view of a vendor's security posture. It re-evaluates that posture as external risk signals change and surfaces new risks as they emerge.

A completed questionnaire, by contrast, reflects only what a vendor reported on the day they completed it, and it relies on their word, which is the built-in limit of any self-assessment. 

Combine the questionnaire with continuous evidence such as security ratings, so an independent, always-updating view supports the point-in-time answers.

UpGuard scans more than 15 million organizations daily against over 400 risk signals, scoring each out of 950, so every questionnaire answer sits beside an independent reading. Alerts fire when a score crosses a threshold you set, so the gap between assessment cycles stops being a blind spot.

How UpGuard helps you manage vendor security questionnaires

Choosing the right questionnaire only helps if you can send it, track it, and then act on the results without adding headcount. UpGuard supports both sides of the questionnaire exchange.

With Vendor Risk, you can discover and onboard vendors, then send assessments from a library of more than 40 pre-built questionnaires or build your own.

Vendors respond through Trust Exchange, UpGuard's free vendor-side tool. Gap questionnaires ask vendors only for missing evidence, and one in four respond within two days.

You can also track responses and run AI-powered assessments, store every completed questionnaire in one place, and pair the results with security ratings for continuous monitoring. To see how it works on your own vendor list, book a demo.

Frequently asked questions

What is a vendor security questionnaire?

It's a structured set of questions you send a third party to verify their security controls before you share data. It gives you documented, comparable evidence to inform a vendor risk decision.

What is the difference between the SIG and CAIQ questionnaires?

SIG is a broad questionnaire that covers many risk domains for any vendor type; Shared Assessments maintains it. CAIQ targets cloud and SaaS providers and maps to the Cloud Controls Matrix; the Cloud Security Alliance maintains it.

Which vendor security questionnaire is best for small businesses?

For a small or low-risk vendor, a lightweight questionnaire gathers what you need without a full assessment. Options like SIG Lite, HECVAT Core 60, or VSA-Core match the depth to the vendor's risk.

How long does a vendor security questionnaire take to complete?

It ranges from a few hours for a lightweight questionnaire to several days for a full framework-based one. Automation and a reusable answer library shorten that considerably.

Do these questionnaires reflect real-world risk?

Only partly. Because vendors report their own answers at a single point in time, pair them with continuous monitoring, such as security ratings, to confirm a vendor's current posture.