Risk management with table top exercises
What is a Table top exercise and why do I care?
A Cyber Security Tabletop Exercises (TTXs) is a highly interactive and engaging activity, that is designed to test your organisation’s incident response plan, capabilities and processes. A TTX provides a safe and controlled environment for the organisation to practise it’s incident detection, containment and response strategies, and identify areas of weakness that need to be addressed.
Cyber Security Tabletop Exercises (TTXs) are essentially simulations of potential incidents (in this case, cyber incidents) that could impact an organisation, and the generally form part of the organisation’s incident response plan and process because they allow organisations to proactively prepare for incidents rather than reactively responding to them.
How does a TTX benefit your business?
The TTX is a highly interactive and engaging activity, designed to promote collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills among your team members, and each TTX will provide your business with a number of benefits:
- After each scenario, our expert facilitators will provide a detailed debriefing, offering constructive feedback and recommendations for improvement.
- Each TTX will identify potential weaknesses in your organisation’s incident-management capabilities, and suggest opportunities for improvement.
- Because the TTX is a collaborative exercise, it can be used to foster a culture of cyber awareness and preparedness among your team members.
In summary, the TTX will benefit your business by providing valuable insights into your team’s readiness and ability to respond to actual cyber threats. This approach not only helps identify potential weaknesses in your cyber security posture but also provides an opportunity for your team to learn and improve their skills in a risk-free environment.
How does dotSec run a TTX?
During the TTX, your team will be presented with one or more of hypothetical cyber security incidents, based on the most common and emerging threats in the industry. These scenarios will be designed to mimic the conditions and pressures of a real cyber attack, requiring your team to act on the information presented and make critical decisions under pressure. However, the decisions made during this exercise will not have any real-world consequences. Instead, they will shape the way the TTX scenario unfolds, providing valuable insights into your team’s readiness and ability to respond to actual cyber threats.
This approach not only helps identify potential weaknesses in your cyber security posture but also provides an opportunity for your team to learn and improve their skills in a risk-free environment.
A TTX will generally be implemented in three main phases: pre-exercise, exercise, and post-exercise. Each of these phases is described in more detail below:
1. Pre-exercise
2. TTX exercise
Exercise: This is the actual Table-Top Exercise(s) where the participants will be presented with an agreed-upon cyber security scenario. The exercises will be interactive, allowing participants to engage in strategic discussions and decision-making processes within time-limited stages or scenes and acts. Within each of these scenes and acts, the participants will be tasked with making decisions, providing evidence (such as policies, procedures, log files and job descriptions) of preparedness, and for identifying the most effective strategies for detecting, responding to, and recovering from the simulated cyber incidents.
dotSec generally conducts two separate exercises: one whose attendees are primarily executives (with minimal technical staff), and another whose attendees are primarily technical (with minimal executive staff). The advantage of this approach is that each session can focus on processes and decisions and outcomes relevant to the appropriate group and more realistically reflects how incident response would occur in real life.
3. Post-exercise
Post-Exercise: This phase involves a thorough review and analysis of the combined exercises. We will provide a comprehensive report detailing the performance of your team, highlighting areas of strength and areas that need improvement. This will also include actionable recommendations on how to enhance your organisations’ cyber security strategies and mechanisms.
What next?
By participating in our Cyber Security TTX, your organisation will not only enhance its resilience to cyber threats but also foster a culture of cyber awareness and preparedness among your team members. We believe this proactive approach is key to mitigating the risk of cyber incidents and ensuring the ongoing security and integrity of your systems and services.
Give us a call and let’s talk TTX!