performing-ransomware-tabletop-exercise

name	performing-ransomware-tabletop-exercise
description	Plans and facilitates tabletop exercises simulating ransomware incidents to test organizational readiness, decision-making, and communication procedures. Designs realistic scenarios based on current ransomware threat actors (LockBit, ALPHV/BlackCat, Cl0p), injects covering double extortion, backup destruction, and regulatory notification requirements. Evaluates participant responses against NIST CSF and CISA guidelines. Use when working with performing ransomware tabletop exercise.
domain	cybersecurity
tags	["ransomware","incident-response","tabletop-exercise","defense","preparedness"]
subdomain	ransomware-defense
version	1.0.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["PR.DS-11","RS.MA-01","RC.RP-01","PR.IR-01"]

Performing Ransomware Tabletop Exercise

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for performing ransomware tabletop exercise. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "performing ransomware tabletop exercise"

• "Plans and facilitates tabletop exercises simulating ransomware incidents to test"

• Testing organizational ransomware response procedures annually or after major infrastructure changes

• Validating decision-making processes for ransom payment, regulatory notification, and public disclosure

• Training executives, IT, legal, PR, and operations teams on their roles during a ransomware incident

• Meeting cyber insurance policy requirements for documented incident response testing

• Identifying gaps in recovery playbooks, communication plans, and backup procedures

Do not use as a substitute for technical controls testing. Tabletop exercises validate procedures and decision-making, not technical detection or prevention capabilities.

When NOT to Use

• When you lack proper authorization for testing
• For production systems without change management
• When the task requires legal or compliance expertise beyond technical scope

Prerequisites

• Documented incident response plan (IRP) that participants should have read before the exercise
• Identified exercise participants from: executive leadership, IT/security, legal, communications/PR, HR, operations, and external counsel
• Facilitator who is independent from the IR team (to provide objective evaluation)
• Ransomware scenario designed with injects that escalate over multiple rounds
• Evaluation criteria aligned to NIST CSF Respond/Recover functions
• Conference room or virtual meeting for 2-4 hours with no interruptions

Workflow

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

 () -> :
     {k: re.findall(v, text)  k, v  IOC_PATTERNS.items()}