The Power of the Tabletop: Turning Awareness into Readiness in Financial Services

It’s 2:07 a.m. on a Thursday.

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand. It’s your cybersecurity provider calling. They have observed deletion of backups and outbound communication to known ransomware networks.

Your mind kicks into overdrive and you grab your laptop trying to remember:

Where’s the incident response plan again?
Who is the incident commander?
Who needs to be looped in?
Who does what to execute the plan? …and the list goes on.

If you can’t answer those questions, especially under pressure, you are NOT ready – even if you have a plan. That’s what tabletop exercises are built for – turning your Incident Response Plan (IR Plan) into a tested plan of action.

Why Tabletop Exercises Matter

Having an established IR Plan is a major step forward and it means your organization isn’t starting from zero when a breach occurs. The plan defines who does what, when, and how, reducing confusion and chaos when every minute counts, but even the best-written plan can fall flat if it’s never been tested in action. That’s where tabletop exercises make all the difference.

Tabletops simulate real-world attack scenarios in a low-pressure, discussion-based setting, allowing teams to walk through their roles, validate procedures, and expose gaps before an actual incident occurs. They bring your plan to life, helping you see where steps are unclear, communication channels break down, or technical dependencies are missing. Regular tabletop exercises don’t just strengthen the IR Plan. They build team confidence, reinforce cross-department coordination and keep everyone aligned on what “good response” looks like. Over time, this testing and refinement process transforms the IR plan from a static document into a living, battle-tested playbook that evolves with your organization’s risks, tools, and personnel.

In the financial world, trust is your currency. And nothing drains that faster than a chaotic, uncoordinated response to a cyber event. Unfortunately, many institutions often run a tabletop only once a year to check a compliance box. It’s polite, it’s predictable, and everyone walks away with a false sense of confidence, until the real thing hits. The real value of a tabletop exercise is not just confirming what you already know. It’s revealing what you don’t.

Knowing What You Need to Know

That phrase, “knowing what you need to know,” is the heartbeat of a good tabletop because in the middle of a real incident, the questions won’t be technical. They’ll be human.

• Who is responsible for making key decisions during this event?
• What are the first three actions your team would take once notified?
• How would information be communicated to leadership or other teams?
• How do we ensure the right people are notified in a timely manner?
• What documentation or procedures would you reference first?
• Who handles external communication (e.g., media, customers, public)?
• How do you escalate issues if normal communication channels are down?

Every “I don’t know” addressed in a tabletop is a gap you just closed before it cost you money, customers, and reputation.

Effective Tabletops

A strong tabletop isn’t just a technical drill, it’s really a conversation. It’s bringing together compliance, operations, IT, risk, and communications around a shared “what if” scenario. The exercise is powerful because it uncovers the cracks, the assumptions, silos, and slow responses that can turn a manageable incident into a full-blown crisis.

A few keys to making it work:

• Keep it real: Use threats that could actually happen to your institution.
• Include everyone: Leadership, legal, HR, comms…cyber events affect every function!
• Focus on decisions, not tech: It’s not about firewalls; it’s about who speaks and when.
• Write down the “I don’t knows:” They’re your to-do list for next time.
• Make it human: Simulate the confusion, the stress, the competing priorities.

Tabletop exercises are how you connect policy to practice. They turn a binder full of procedures into muscle memory while clarifying roles, streamlining process, and making chaos feel manageable. When the next incident hits, and it will, those who practiced, communicate better and recover faster.

Ready to Put Your Plan to the Test?

DefenseStorm delivers structured Tabletop Exercises designed specifically for financial institutions complete with real-time CODA-based reporting, After-Action Reports, and remediation plans. These sessions help your team identify gaps, validate policies, and build lasting operational resilience.

Your financial institution operates in a uniquely high-stakes environment where every second of downtime costs trust and revenue. Regulators are at your door demanding operational resilience and transparent response while customers/members expect seamless service even under duress.

Think about how being unprepared can set off a chain reaction of consequences.

Learn more about running your next tabletop with DefenseStorm so when that middle of the night call notifies you of a possible incident, you know exactly what to do.

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