Cybersecurity has become a critical concern in every business sector nowadays due to organizations’ growing dependency on technologies. Research by Immersive Lab reported that in 2019 there were more than 20,000 new vulnerabilities. Not only that, TechRepublic reported that global companies experienced a 148% spike in ransomware attacks after COVID-19 hit the world. So, for most organizations, the question isn’t who will be the target of a cyber attack. Instead, the question is, “When will it occur, and how do we deal with it?”

Organizations need an incident response plan to combat future incidents so that they can protect their business reputation and finances against malicious activity. But how can they know that the plan they have is efficient enough to alleviate future cyber incidents? By using a cyber crisis tabletop exercise (CCTE), organizations can test or rehearse the emergency preparedness plan before a crisis occurs.  

What is a Cyber Crisis Tabletop Excercise?

A cyber crisis tabletop exercise, also known as cyber incident response test, helps organizations to identify different risk scenarios and prepare them for cyber threats. It’s an activity to evaluate whether your organization’s incident response plan works effectively in the case of a cyber attack. Towards that end, it considers several simulated scenarios that could profoundly impact your business if they happened in reality.

Internal and external stakeholders, C-level executives, and/or an internal security team from your organization could be participants of a CCTE. The whole exercise is guided by a skilled facilitator or top management personnel who analyzes the crisis management capabilities of an organization and ensures that response and recovery plans are well coordinated and communicated. They also keep participants focused on the exercise objective.

Benefits of Cyber Crisis Tabletop Experience

Cyber crisis business exercises help businesses to achieve the following: