Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises & Disaster Recovery Planning

What a real tabletop exercise looks like

A real tabletop isn't a slide deck and a read-through of the IR plan. It's a facilitated scenario with live injects - 'your CFO just got a call from a journalist asking about the breach' - that force decisions in real time across every function. Our facilitators come from incident response backgrounds and have run hundreds of these, so the pressure is realistic but the environment is safe.

Common scenarios include ransomware with extortion, business email compromise with wire fraud, third-party / supply-chain breach (think MOVEit, SolarWinds), insider data theft, regulator notification under HIPAA // GDPR / state breach laws, and major cloud-provider outage.

• Ransomware + double-extortion scenarios
• Business email compromise (BEC) + wire fraud
• Third-party / supply-chain breach
• Insider data exfiltration
• Cloud-provider or SaaS outage
• Regulatory breach notification drills

DR plans tested against the math, not the wishes

Disaster recovery planning starts with a Business Impact Analysis: which systems must come back first, how long can the business survive without them (RTO), and how much data loss is acceptable (RPO). We model the actual recovery sequence against your backup architecture, your cloud topology, and your dependencies - and rebuild the plan when the math doesn't add up.

We deliver written DR runbooks, BCP documentation, alternate-site and alternate-process planning, and an annual DR test schedule.

Satisfying the requirements every regulator and insurer now ask about

Annual tabletop exercises and tested DR plans are now explicit requirements under HIPAA Security Rule §164.308(a)(7), PCI DSS 4.0 Requirement 12.10, SOC 2 CC9.1 // A1.3, ISO 27001 A.5.29 // A.5.30, NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500, and CMMC IR.L2-3.6.3 - and on the application of every major cyber insurance carrier. We deliver the after-action report and attestation your auditor and underwriter expect.

How different industries put this service to work

Every regulated and growth-stage business we support has a slightly different reason for engaging this service. The common thread is that the risk, downtime, or compliance cost of doing nothing is now bigger than the cost of a specialized partner.

• Healthcare and behavioral health groups protecting PHI under HIPAA and the HHS cybersecurity performance goals
• Financial services, RIAs, and CPAs meeting FTC Safeguards, SEC, and state privacy requirements
• Manufacturers and defense suppliers preparing for CMMC 2.0 Level 1 and Level 2 assessments
• Law firms and professional services protecting client confidentiality and privileged data
• K-12, higher education, and public sector agencies defending student and constituent data
• Construction, real estate, and multi-site retail keeping distributed teams online and secure

What good looks like when you evaluate providers

Not every provider that lists this service on their website actually delivers it well. Use the checklist below when you shortlist partners so you can compare apples to apples and avoid the two most common traps: a low sticker price that hides scope gaps, and a polished sales cycle backed by an offshore delivery team you never meet.

If a prospective provider cannot answer these questions plainly and in writing, treat that as a signal. The right partner will welcome the scrutiny.

• Written SLAs with response and resolution targets, not just uptime
• Named senior engineers assigned to your account, not a shared queue
• US-based delivery with clear escalation paths and named leadership
• Transparent monthly reporting with metrics leadership actually cares about
• Security-first defaults: MFA, least privilege, and monitored change control
• Alignment to your compliance framework, not a generic template
• A real onboarding plan with milestones, not just a handoff email