Cyber crisis management: be ready before reality forces your hand
Friday, 5:30 PM. An alert comes in: servers are encrypting in cascade. The press is calling. Management wants answers. In the first ten minutes, cyber crisis management does not depend on your tools. It depends on your teams’ preparation, the clarity of your decision chain, and the robustness of your procedures under real pressure.
Stroople supports organizations at every stage of this continuum: before the crisis to structure the framework, during to test it under immersive conditions, and after to turn lessons learned into lasting resilience.
of organizations have never tested their crisis plan under real conditions
of organizations face significant blockers to effective cyber incident response.
of CISOs identify operational disruption as the top cyber risk.
What is cyber crisis management?
Cyber crisis management is the combination of processes, teams and tools that enable an organization to detect a major incident, activate a coordinated response, and limit its impact on operations, reputation and data. It covers three phases: upstream preparation, response at the time of the incident, and post-incident reconstruction.
According to ANSSI, the majority of organizations hit by a major cyberattack had neither formalized nor tested their crisis management framework before the incident. This is precisely the gap Stroople helps close.
Does any of this sound familiar?
These are the situations our clients describe before their first engagement with Stroople.
If one of these resonates, your organization is not alone. However, the gap between a documented framework and a tested one is exactly where crises become uncontrollable. Stroople’s approach closes that gap before the incident does.
Building the crisis management plan
How Stroople supports your cyber crisis management
Every engagement follows the same three-phase logic, adapted to your context and regulatory obligations.
Before. Stroople conducts a gap analysis of your existing framework: crisis plan, BCP, DRP, crisis cell composition, notification chain, critical dependencies. From there, we structure or rebuild your cyber crisis management plan to be operational under pressure, not just compliant on paper.
During. We design and run an immersive on-site exercise built around your reality: your business lines, your vulnerabilities, your sector-specific obligations. Scenarios include active ransomware, data breaches, internal fraud, reputational crises with simultaneous media pressure, and hybrid combinations. Stimuli are realistic: authenticated emails, simulated journalist calls, audio deepfakes, press alerts and live press release drafting under urgency.
After. We deliver a structured after-action report with identified strengths, revealed gaps and prioritized recommendations, presented to your management. A three-month follow-up measures implementation progress. When a real crisis occurs, Stroople’s 24/7 Managed SOC supports technical remediation in coordination with our InterCERT-certified CERT.
Assess
Gap analysis of your crisis plan, BCP, DRP, crisis cell and notification chain. Identification of priority gaps by risk level and regulatory obligation.
Prepare
Drafting or overhaul of your cyber crisis management plan: triggering criteria, roles, notification procedures, communication strategy.
Exercise
Immersive on-site simulation with realistic stimuli: emails, phone calls, audio deepfakes, press alerts. Observers embedded in your strategic crisis cell.
Strengthen
Structured after-action report, prioritized recommendations, management presentation, three-month follow-up on implementation.
What NIS2 and DORA require from your organization
Both regulations go beyond policy documentation. They require proof of operational preparedness.
NIS2 – Essential and important entities must notify the competent national authority within 24 hours of a significant incident, submit an intermediate report within 72 hours, and demonstrate regular crisis exercises as part of their risk management obligations.
DORA – Financial entities must notify their supervisory authority within 4 hours of a major ICT incident, maintain a documented digital operational resilience testing program, and conduct advanced threat-led penetration tests every 3 years for significant entities.
For organizations subject to NIS2 or DORA, Stroople’s support covers the full scope of these obligations.
Your teams deserve to be ready on the day that matters. Not to discover their limits under real pressure.
To assess your current level of preparedness or organize your first cyber crisis management exercise, our experts respond within 24 hours.
Ready to immerse your teams
in real-world situations?
Cyber Crisis Exercise: Immersive Training for COMEX and CIO
Test your crisis process in a full-scale cyber crisis exercise. Immersive training for COMEX and IT leaders, with a 3-month action plan review. Qualiopi-certified training, eligible for funding.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
General questions about Cyber Crisis Management
No. A cyber crisis management exercise can be organized even if your framework is still under construction. In that case, it serves precisely to identify priority gaps and accelerate plan structuring. A minimal foundation, meaning an identified crisis cell and defined emergency contacts, does however improve the quality of learning outcomes.
An exercise typically involves between 8 and 20 participants depending on the size of your crisis cell. It can cover the strategic cell (management, CIO, legal, communications), the operational cell (technical teams), or both simultaneously. The scope is defined together during the scoping phase.
No. The exercise is conducted in a simulated environment, with no impact on production systems or operational activity. The average duration is between half a day and a full day depending on the chosen scenario. Preparation, handled by our teams, only requires one internal point of contact for the scoping phases.
Scenarios cover ransomware attacks, customer or employee data breaches, internal fraud, reputational crises with simultaneous media pressure, and hybrid scenarios combining several of these dimensions. Each scenario is built around your specific context, critical dependencies and sector-specific obligations.
No. The exercise is conducted in a simulated environment, with no impact on production systems or operational activity. The average duration is between half a day and a full day depending on the chosen scenario. Preparation, handled by our teams, only requires one internal point of contact for the scoping phases.
Stroople is a certified training organization. Depending on the chosen configuration, the engagement can be structured as a continuing professional development action with a training program and completion certificate. Partial or full funding through your sector’s training body may be available depending on your industry and collective agreement. Our experts can assess eligibility with you from the first conversation.
Cyber Crisis Management: Survive the First Five Hours
Cyber crisis management for NIS2 and DORA-regulated companies: gap analysis, immersive exercise and remediation. Ready before it counts.