How should a CISO complete a vendor security questionnaire for a video management system?

Why the VSQ format matters

The three established VSQ formats (SIG, CAIQ, VSA) cover 90% of enterprise procurement security expectations. Demanding a bespoke template forces the vendor into an answer-rewriting exercise instead of attaching the maintained answer library, which produces less consistent answers and adds 5-10 business days to the response window.

Non-negotiable VSQ contents

A CISO should require the following on every VMS vendor response.

• Software bill of materials (SBOM) in SPDX or CycloneDX format, refreshed at every minor release.
• Penetration test executive summary from a CREST-accredited or equivalent third party, dated within the last 12 months.
• Encryption posture — AES-256-GCM at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, customer-managed keys (CMEK / BYOK) where the deployment supports it, key rotation cadence.
• Identity federation — SSO / SAML 2.0 / OIDC against the enterprise IdP, MFA on every administrative session, JIT provisioning.
• Immutable audit logging with SIEM export (Splunk, Sentinel, Chronicle, QRadar) and a defined log-retention window.
• Incident-response runbook with named RTO / RPO commitments, contractually defined notification window (typically 72 hours), and post-incident review cadence.
• NDAA Section 889 attestation for any deployment touching US federal funding, plus an SBOM that survives FAR 52.204-25 scrutiny.
• Country-specific compliance evidence — GDPR / ICO for UK, PDPL for UAE and Saudi Arabia, STQC for India critical infrastructure.

Red flags in a vendor response

• Compliance claims with no document reference.
• "We comply with industry standards" without naming the standard.
• Refusal to share an SBOM under NDA.
• Penetration test summary older than 18 months.
• Encryption posture that does not name AES-256 + TLS 1.3.
• Audit logging without SIEM export support.

VMukti VSQ desk

VMukti maintains a continuously-updated answer library for SIG, CAIQ, VSA, and the bespoke Fortune-500 procurement formats. Standard VSQ turnaround is 5-7 business days for net-new buyers and 48 hours for templates already answered. Enterprise CISO teams can route requests via [email protected].