Where the CAIQ comes from
The Cloud Security Alliance maintains the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM), a set of security controls for cloud computing grouped into domains, and the Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) that asks about them. Version 4 is the current one. Its domains include audit and assurance, application and interface security, business continuity and resilience, change control, cryptography and key management, data security and privacy, governance and risk, human resources, identity and access management, infrastructure and virtualisation, logging and monitoring, incident management, supply chain and transparency, and threat and vulnerability management. Each control maps to ISO 27001, SOC 2 and other frameworks.
Shared responsibility is built in
Unlike most questionnaires, the CAIQ asks who owns each control: the cloud service provider, the customer, or both. A SaaS vendor on a large hosting platform is in the middle of that chain. You are the provider to your customer, and a customer of your hosting provider. Physical security and the data centre's environmental controls belong to the hosting provider, so cite its certification. Access to your application, encryption settings and secure development belong to you. Configuring user accounts and roles in your product is usually shared with the customer, and the answer should say so plainly.
How the answers are read
The CAIQ asks yes, no or not applicable, with an implementation description. The description is what a reviewer reads. "Yes" to "Are encryption keys rotated?" says little; "Keys are managed in the hosting provider's key service and rotated yearly, with access limited to two named engineers" answers the question. Where a control is the customer's, say what your product gives them to meet it.
Answering as a vendor
Answer the CAIQ once in full and consider publishing it as a STAR self-assessment. Many customers will accept it instead of sending their own. The same approved answers also serve the SIG and ISO-shaped questionnaires, because the CCM maps to them, so keep the answers in a library rather than in the spreadsheet itself.
In Responsemate
The CAIQ arrives as a spreadsheet like any other questionnaire. Each row is drafted from your knowledge base with the sources shown, the hosting provider's CAIQ and certificates sit there as evidence with their expiry dates, and the answers are exported into the customer's own file. Knowledge in Responsemate.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between the CCM and the CAIQ?
The Cloud Controls Matrix is the list of controls. The CAIQ is the questionnaire built on it, with one or more questions per control. Answering the CAIQ is how a provider says which CCM controls it has.
Should we publish our CAIQ?
If customers ask for it often, yes. A self-assessment in the CSA STAR Registry is free, public and accepted by many customers in place of their own questionnaire. Keep it current, because reviewers look at the date.
How do we answer CAIQ rows that our hosting provider covers?
Mark the control as shared or provider-owned, cite the provider's own published CAIQ or certification, and say in a sentence what you do on top, such as how you configure their services.