Wargames and tabletops that show where the plan breaks.
F Creative Studio 360 runs incident exercises for boards and technical teams in any country. A discussion does not touch systems. A live exercise is a separate written scope.
An unread plan fails in the first hour.
Exercises are built around NIST SP 800-61 and the plan the organisation already has. A local testing duty, such as CPS 234 or the Essential Eight, is used only when that organisation is actually measured against it. Completing an exercise is not a statement of compliance.
- A tabletop does not touch systems
- People talk through a scenario. No malware is sent, no account is attacked, and nothing is taken offline.
- A live exercise is a separate scope
- A technical wargame runs only with written authorisation, an approved environment, and a stop condition. It is not a surprise, and it is not a denial-of-service test.
- The room changes the questions
- A board exercise is about decisions, customers and regulators. A technical exercise is about detection and containment. They can be run together, and they are not the same session.
- A gap list is the product
- The exercise is useful if it changes the plan. F Creative Studio 360 does not certify that the organisation is ready.
What an exercise covers
The scenario is chosen for the people in the room. The same formats work in any country, in person or online.
- Board and executive tabletop
- Who is told, what is said publicly, whether a regulator is notified, and which service is restored first. Counsel’s questions are named. Counsel still decides.
- Technical tabletop
- The security and technology teams walk the playbook: detection, escalation, containment and evidence. Systems stay untouched.
- A scoped live exercise
- Only when written in. The target list, the techniques and the hours are agreed. Activity stays inside that list.
- Scenarios
- Ransomware, a data exposure, or a compromised executive mailbox, chosen for the organisation. The scenario is fiction. The gaps it finds are not.
- The debrief
- What was decided, what was slow, and which line of the plan should change.
- What it is not
- Not a penetration test, not phishing outside an approved list, and not a resilience exercise for a financial institution unless that is the scope you asked for.
How an exercise runs
Participants know it is an exercise. Nothing is sprung on a team, a supplier or a customer.
- 1
Choose the room
Board, technical team, or both, and which entities they are exercising.
- 2
Write the scenario
Matched to the plan, or used to show that a plan does not exist yet. No plan is required to start.
- 3
Run it
A facilitated discussion, or a live exercise if that scope was signed. Observers note decisions and time.
- 4
Hand back the gaps
A short report and the lines of the plan to change. The organisation owns the edits.
What you receive
- The scenario and who attended.
- The decisions the room actually made.
- Gaps in people, process and the tools they named.
- Lines of the plan to change.
- No claim that the organisation is compliant.
Common questions
What is a cyber tabletop?+
A structured discussion of a simulated incident. Participants say what they would do. F Creative Studio 360 records the gaps. No system is attacked.
Who should attend?+
The people who would actually decide or act. A board session is for directors and executives. A technical session is for the people who detect and contain. F Creative Studio 360 can run either, or both, for organisations in any country.
Is a live wargame a penetration test?+
No. A penetration test looks for weaknesses on an agreed target. A live wargame, when it is in scope, checks whether the team detects and responds inside an approved environment. Both need written authorisation. Neither includes a denial-of-service test.
Do we need a plan first?+
No. If there is no plan, the exercise shows what must be written. If there is a plan, the exercise shows whether people follow it.
How much does it cost?+
It depends on who is in the room, whether the exercise is a discussion or live, and whether it is in person. A scoping conversation with F Creative Studio 360 is the way to get a quote. There is no obligation to proceed.
Start with the room that would have to decide.
F Creative Studio 360 will look at who must attend and whether the exercise is a discussion or live, then say what a sensible scope includes.