Security Surveys: Fill In the Blanks

Navigating third-party security questionnaires, customer inquiries, and vendor risk assessments is a constant, time-consuming challenge.

Even if you have a solution to overcome the different versions, formats, and styles of questionnaires you're getting, the nuance and business context behind every question makes it nearly impossible to fully automate.

That's where Max comes in. Knowing your company's business context, technologies and procedures, Max can tailor responses and craft vendor-specific questionnaires every time.

It's not automation, it's personalized consultation on the highest level.

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The company

• B2B Startup

• Company size: 80

• Global customers

• Security team: 2

Challenges

• Multiple 3rd party quetionnaires to fill

• Respond to ad-hoc customer inquiries.

• Create custom 3rd party questionnaires as part of TPRM process.

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For this customer, Max has been operational for 2 months. This client wasn't using their private knowledge base yet, when the CISO started asking Max to answer a question a customer sent via Email. After Max provided the CISO with a clear and accurate answer, ready to be sent back to the customer with minor changes, the CISO moved on to a full 3rd party survey he recieved and yet to complete.

Once the CISO updated the company's context, the results were accurate and copy-ready in over 80% of the questions.

With the updated context, the CISO started using Max to generate unique case-specific questionnaire for new vendors, as part of the company's TPRM process.

Outcome

• CISO spent 60% less time filling 3rd party questionnaires, mostly reviewing and fine-tuning Max's responses.

• Customer ad-hoc requests are getting quicker, more accurate responses.

• Company's TPRM process is more efficient and productive with tailored questionnaires.

• The customer context has improved, leading to higher accuracy on overall interactions with Max.

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Key takeaways

• Max's familiarity with the company was the key in this case, saving the CISO time and effort, while also pointing out the gaps to achieve better results overall.

• When every request is different and unexpected, automation becomes irrelevant, especially when the business context is imperative.

• You don’t need enterprise tooling to achieve enterprise-level automation.

The mid-market angle

Most large clients will send a security questionnaire for a potential vendor as part of their internal risk assessment protocols. It's a tedious and unavoidable part of the CISO's work, no matter how big or small the company is. Companies still use different formats, platforms or tools to share these questionnaires, and although similar in nature, the questions are diverese, unexpected, and requires deep familiarity with the business operation.

All these factors lead to extensive ad-hoc manual work, hard to automate or anticipate. However exhausting and time consuming, since it's unpredicted and not continous, many mid-market companies don't consider this effort crucial enough to justify purchasing a designated solution, rightfully so.

With Max as your in-house cybersecurity expert, you can reduce the time and effort it takes to fill out questionnaires, respond to customer queries, or even craft your own unique questionnaires for 3rd party vendors.