Physical security
Physical security concerns the servers in our data centres. For our customers in Europe, the server location is Meppel, the Netherlands.
Data Center & Servers
Our servers are located in Serverius data centres and are backed up in separate facilities in Microsoft Azure Clouds. QuestionPro restricts access to the data centres to senior staff on a least privilege basis. The data centres are monitored 24 hours a day. Visitors are logged and escorted by data centre staff. All visitors must wear ID badges. The centres use security staff, electronic access devices, biometric access devices, fire alarm systems and CCTV surveillance.
Server monitoring
QuestionPro uses monitoring tools such as Nagios, CloudFlare and OSSEC in conjunction with the logging capabilities of Apache Logs, Linux var/log/audit/audit.log and MySQL Statistics. System administrators can select specific events to audit at each level of the system, including internal system access, failed authentication attempts and other auditable events. In addition, these tools allow time-stamping of all auditable actions and the creation of audit logs.
Data center compliance
Data centre compliance: Serverius, QuestionPro's primary data centre, is regularly audited to ISO 27001. Reports from these audits confirm Serverius' commitment to protecting against unauthorised access and ensuring data is always available. QuestionPro's backup facility, MS Azure, is subject to regular SSAE 16 SOC 2 audits. The reports of these two facilities can of course be viewed at any time upon request.
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Access and user accounts
User account level security describes measures to ensure user account security QuestionPro
User authentication
Single Sign-On: Single Sign-On (SSO) allows QuestionPro users to access with the credentials of an existing corporate intranet. SAML, multi-pass / token or cookie-based SSO can be used with common authentication systems such as Active Directory or LDAP to determine whether an end user is authenticated.
Double opt-in verification and reCaptcha
QuestionPro offers the option to request reCaptcha verification when registering users. reCaptcha prevents automated scripts from creating fake accounts, which significantly increases user account security.
Personnel Authentication
Everyone has access to the QuestionPro server, which requires multi-factor authentication - SSH keys and passphrases. Access to the staging environment is restricted to developers, access to the production environment is restricted to system administrators and access to the databases is restricted to senior system administrators.
Email-based access restrictions
With the QuestionPro Academic licence, university customers can restrict user account registration to people with university email address ranges, making access easier while increasing security against unauthorised use.
Administrative security
Administrative security concerns the creation of additional main and sub-accounts as well as the assignment of rights
Username and password
Passwords must contain at least 8 characters and a combination of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and special characters. Passwords that are easy to guess must not be used. Account holders must change passwords every ninety days. Any logged-in user will be automatically logged out after 15 minutes of inactivity. All unused usernames will be automatically deactivated after six months of inactivity.
Principle of least privilege
QuestionPro uses the principle of least privilege. Qualified QuestionPro employees may only access privileged areas of the system when such access is necessary for the operation of QuestionPro's business functions, such as in the case of support or contracted services. Access to the system will only be granted to appropriately qualified employees to enable them to perform essential tasks.
User account management
QuestionPro offers a very fine-grained rights- and role-based user account management for multi-user accounts. This means that only system administrators (owners of main user accounts) can create new main or sub accounts and assign corresponding rights and roles. Rights and roles of sub-accounts can be individually adjusted, changed, deleted or access restricted at any time..
Security of the server and system environment
Our servers are optimally protected against both external attacks (hacker attacks) and unauthorised access. We also carry out regular vulnerability scans and use SSL, TLS, SSH and SCP encryption.
Firewall
All external connections to the QuestionPro system land on an iptables / Linux firewall configured with a default "deny all" rule. Uninitiated outgoing traffic is restricted to external APIs and SMTP. By default, the firewall does not use managed access points for HTTP traffic, SSL-encrypted HTTP traffic and outgoing SMTP traffic.
Extra protection
In addition to a firewall, QuestionPro also uses IP blacklists to consistently block out IP addresses known to be fraudulent and the OSSEC Integrity Checker to detect if unauthorised changes have been made to the system. In addition, QuestionPro uses the CloudFlare boundary protection service to create logical boundaries and prevent DDoS attacks.
Encryption
Data during transmission: QuestionPro implements SSL, TLS, SSH and SCP encryption for the secure transmission of data. QuestionPro supports full SSL encryption and all mail servers are configured with TLS. Access to the system server is only possible via SSH on a non-standard port. Data is transferred to the backup data centre via SSH using rsync. Data at rest: QuestionPro encrypts all customer passwords and credit card data stored in the system databases using a hash procedure. If customers use SSO, the passwords are not stored but authenticated with a token.
Development practices
Maintains separate environments for development, staging, testing and production as part of the QuestionPro development process in accordance with SDLC best practices. Access is restricted to system administrators. All development code is reviewed by a senior administrator before going into production. QuestionPro protects against SQL injections through prepared statements, stored procedures, escaping user input and enforcing least privilege. QuestionPro combats cross-site scripting through proper escaping/coding, blacklists, vulnerability scans and other methods.
Configuration and management
QuestionPro follows a release and maintenance methodology that involves documenting, testing and reviewing changes to the system. QuestionPro updates its server operating systems promptly with the latest patches and issues maintenance releases at least once a week. All non-essential applications are disabled to protect the system from threats.
Vulnerability scans
QuestionPro performs vulnerability scans of the QuestionPro system on all servers in all data centres. Any vulnerabilities discovered are immediately subjected to a security risk assessment and immediately remediated according to the results of the assessment. PCI security reports can of course be viewed at any time upon request.
Fuse
QuestionPro continuously performs hot backups that are available for restoration within two hours. Only system administrators have access to the backups and only for the purpose of system recovery. The backups are not removed from the servers or made available to third parties under any circumstances.
Uninterruptible power supply
Server failover: all QuestionPro servers in all data centres worldwide, without exception, are equipped with uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to provide immediate emergency power in the event of a power failure, thus preventing the system from failing.
Compliance and compliance
QuestionPro's market research and experience management platform meets all regional and supra-regional requirements for data security, data protection and specific conformities.
GDPR compliance
QuestionPro is fully compliant with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and users of our platform can create and send GDPR-compliant surveys for data collection. To support this process, we have a sophisticated process in place to ensure that all data collected with our platform is fully GDPR compliant, including data portability, privacy, consent and other compliance features.
ISO 27001: 2013
QuestionPro ist ein nach ISO 27001:2013 zertifiziertes Unternehmen. ISO 27001 ist ein weltweit anerkannter internationaler Standard für das Management von Risiken für die Sicherheit von Informationen. Wir haben alle standardisierten Anforderungen für ein Informationssicherheitsmanagementsystem (ISMS). Im Rahmen dieser Standards verfolgen wir einen prozessbasierten Ansatz für die Einrichtung, Implementierung, den Betrieb, die Überwachung, Wartung und Verbesserung unserer Systeme.
Section 508 Compliance
Surveys, market research studies and touchpoint analyses created with QuestionPro are compliant with Section 508 (US Federal Accessibility Guidelines). Online surveys and questionnaires created on the QuestionPro platform are compliant for people with physical disabilities.
FERPA Compliance (applies to USA)
QuestionPro is committed to complying with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. We ensure that all of our clients follow the same code of conduct. To ensure FERPA compliance, we follow a strict administrative and technical protocol.
Your questions about the security of QuestionPro
We would be happy to answer all your questions about our security measures to protect your data and your user account as part of a 1:1 live online consultation
