CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS IMAGE & COLOR IT IN!The global average cost of a data breach was $4.88 million in 2024 per IBM.
The lesson?
Your annual ransomware tabletop exercise just isn’t cutting it when it comes to holistic preparedness—especially if you’re dusting off last year’s template for a re-run.
You need to fight today’s digital dragons with modern strategies—not the wooden swords and paper shields of the past.
You can’t expect to cast a ransomware resilience spell and have it magically materialize into the ransomware response of your dreams. It’s something you need to work towards, daily—embedding a culture of security into every organization you serve. Sure, a great ransomware response starts with awareness; but you need to build strong relationships, buy-in, and budget. TTX are an excellent tool for you to use as you do that.
Read on to dream big with us as we rethink what ransomware response needs to look like in 2025, and walk away with the exact talking points and steps you need to consider as consultants and leaders of cybersecurity simulations for external organizations.
Hard truth: Today's threat actors don't lock and leave your data anymore—they quietly steal it first, then threaten to leak it publicly—attacking your cloud environments and business reputation, all while leveraging AI to scale their operations quickly.
This, coupled with the fact that one in three cybersecurity breaches now involve shadow data, makes it nearly impossible to stay on top of everything yourself.
Yikes.
How is your team training for these attacks? More specifically, the attacks that no longer use malware. Instead, they use your tool stack, your credentials, and your infrastructure.
How are you involving Legal (for breach disclosure), PR (for reputation management), Finance (for ransom decision & business impact) and the Executives—who are often targeted directly?
As you can see, it’s no longer simply a game of testing your backups and restoration process. That's why annual exercises are great for compliance, but they just aren't enough to prepare you against the modern threat actors and ransomware-favoring con artists of today.
Ransomware thrives where complacency lives. And complacency happens when scenario fatigue does.
Consider this: When security consultants run some variation of the same ransomware exercise year after year—think, "The encryption spell hits your ERP system! What do you do?"—for the first time, it's engaging. Kind of. By year three, your team is checking emails under the table while nodding along.
This is scenario fatigue in action—and it's the silent killer of preparedness. If you want to keep your response team engaged, you need cybersecurity simulations and ransomware response scenarios with storytelling. An arc. Grit. Characters. Engagement. You get the gist.
It's time to ditch the "long rest" approach to ransomware response and make ransomware resilience an ongoing campaign of improvement. Not sure where to start? No problem. We've got you covered.
Effective ransomware readiness requires a continuous testing program with different "flavors" of exercises targeting specific aspects of your defense, such as:
Technical Exercises: These focus on your detection and response tooling, testing whether your team can identify and contain attacks using your current security tech stack and skills.
Operational Exercises: Alternatively, these test your incident response processes and coordination skills. Can IT, security, communications, and legal work together effectively? Only time (and practice) will tell.
Executive Tabletops: Last but not least, these should be done semi-annually to help stakeholders practice the high-stakes decisions they'll face during an actual ransomware incident. They answer questions like: Should you pay the ransom? How do you communicate with customers and shareholders? What's the financial impact of various recovery strategies?
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You already know that you need to amp up your cybersecurity simulations with lore, characters, and a believable storyline that makes the reality of a failed ransomware response hit home.
Our tips?
As an IR consultant, your job is to build a party of cyber defenders who are gaining experience points constantly to face the threats of tomorrow. This means that it’s mandatory for you to lead your stakeholders beyond the routine ransomware scenario to more realistic, advanced frameworks.
Here are a few suggestions (and a freebie) to get you off to a strong start!
We've just taken you to the border of possibility, showing you what can happen when you adventure beyond an organization's dusty annual exercises—but the quest doesn't end here. True ransomware resilience is an ongoing campaign that keeps your defense party sharp and ready, honed and refined for the threats of tomorrow.
And, if you're tired of the annual ransomware exercise and want to shelve it for something new, we have a great template for you! Download our free <AI Deepfake Scenario> and give your team a challenge they haven't seen before. This ready-to-run tabletop includes everything you need:
Oh—and If you’d like the scenario pre-built in a Facilitator-friendly Miro board, just contact us directly!
About Ally Security
Ally is here to support facilitators, which in turn creates a virtuous cycle where exercises take less time, provide more value, are run more frequently, and can make every organization can be better prepared.
The unexpected wins. The client curveballs. The chaos you couldn’t have scripted if you tried. Dear Asa is your space to share the stories that don’t make it into the official post-incident report. Script, submit, and enjoy a chance to be featured or quoted in an upcoming post.
