Parking operators aren’t typically cybersecurity professionals, and they shouldn’t have to be. But the connected systems that run modern parking operations—payment platforms, access control software, cloud management dashboards, LPR databases—are all potential entry points for attackers. Understanding what your vendors are doing to protect those systems is a legitimate operational responsibility.
The starting point is knowing what questions to ask. Here’s a practical guide to the security questions that matter most in vendor relationships, and what acceptable answers look like.
Annual Penetration Testing
Penetration testing (pen testing) simulates a real-world attack against a vendor’s systems to identify exploitable vulnerabilities before a threat actor does. It should be a standard part of any parking software or hardware vendor’s security program.
What to ask: “Do you conduct annual penetration tests on your cloud platform and supporting infrastructure? Who performs the tests—an internal team or an independent third party?”
What a good answer looks like: Annual testing by an independent third-party firm with verifiable credentials. Internal-only testing is insufficient because the testers are too familiar with the system to find the vulnerabilities a determined outsider would find.
What to ask next: “Can you share a summary of your most recent pen test findings and how they were remediated?” A vendor who won’t share any findings—even a redacted summary—is a vendor who doesn’t have a strong security posture to share.
Some vendors will reference their SOC 2 Type II audit as a proxy for security testing. SOC 2 covers security controls and processes but is not the same as penetration testing. Both matter; neither substitutes for the other.
Continuous Vulnerability Scanning
Penetration testing is a point-in-time exercise. The period between annual tests can still surface new vulnerabilities—through software updates, newly discovered exploits in underlying libraries, or configuration drift. Continuous or frequent vulnerability scanning fills this gap.
What to ask: “Do you run automated vulnerability scans on your infrastructure? How frequently, and how are findings triaged and resolved?”
What a good answer looks like: Automated scanning that runs at least weekly, with a defined triage process: critical findings remediated within 24–48 hours, high findings within a week, medium findings within 30 days. Ask for their SLA in writing if they don’t volunteer it.
Also ask: “Do you use a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) platform for real-time threat monitoring?” This is a signal of security program maturity. Not all mid-market vendors will have one, but larger platforms serving enterprise clients should.
Software Update and Patch Management
Unpatched software is one of the most common attack vectors in any networked environment. This is especially relevant for parking because many facilities run pay stations and gate controllers that receive infrequent firmware updates.
What to ask: “What is your patch release cadence for security vulnerabilities in your software? How are security patches deployed to customer systems, and how quickly after a vulnerability is identified?”
What a good answer looks like: A documented patch process with defined timelines based on severity—critical patches available within days, regular security updates monthly. For cloud-hosted platforms, patches should be applied without customer action required. For on-premise software or field hardware, there should be a clear customer notification and deployment process.
For an overview of cybersecurity standards applicable to parking technology environments, parkingtech.org maintains resources on technology security practices that provide useful context when evaluating vendor responses.
Incident Disclosure Obligations
If your parking vendor experiences a data breach that affects your systems or your customers’ data, you need to know about it quickly. Many operators don’t realize they have contractual rights—and in some jurisdictions, legal obligations—related to breach notification.
What to ask: “What is your contractual commitment for notifying customers of a security incident that affects their data? What is your target notification timeline after you become aware of a breach?”
What a good answer looks like: A written commitment in the service contract, not just a verbal assurance. Industry standard is notification within 72 hours of the vendor becoming aware of a breach—aligned with GDPR and many state-level breach notification laws. Notification should include the nature of the incident, the data affected, and the remediation steps taken.
Also ask: “Have you had any security incidents in the last 24 months? If so, what happened and how was it handled?” Asking this directly isn’t aggressive—it’s responsible due diligence. A vendor who has had an incident and handled it well is often a more trustworthy partner than one claiming a perfect record with no documentation to support it.
What to Do With the Answers
After these conversations, evaluate your vendors against a simple rubric:
- Annual independent pen testing with documented remediation: yes or no
- Continuous vulnerability scanning with defined SLAs: yes or no
- Documented patch management process with defined timelines: yes or no
- Written breach notification commitment in the contract: yes or no
Any vendor who can’t answer yes to all four items is a vendor carrying security risk that may eventually become your problem. Use this as leverage in contract negotiations to require commitments, or use it as input when evaluating alternatives.
Parking operators can’t audit their vendors’ security programs in depth, but they can ask informed questions, document the answers, and hold vendors accountable in writing. That practice alone significantly raises the security floor across your vendor relationships.
Vendor security is one layer of a broader program. The PCI DSS compliance guide for parking operators covers the payment-specific compliance obligations that your software and hardware vendors should be meeting—many of which overlap with the security questions above. If a vendor security failure results in a breach, the data breach response playbook covers the operator’s obligations in the critical first 72 hours. And for the organizational framework within which vendor security fits, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework overview provides the structure that makes these individual practices coherent. When evaluating networked parking equipment like LPR cameras, look for those who can answer the security questions in this guide confidently and in writing—it’s one of the clearest signals of a mature security program.