An extortion message puts your organisation under time pressure. Prepare initial protective instructions, identify specialist contacts and escalation routes, and decide what information senior management needs.
In the case, attackers claim to have stolen data and set a short deadline. Decide who preserves evidence and secures access, which specialists check the claim and what information senior management needs by when. If the deadline expires before further findings arrive, revise your procedure and identify the remaining uncertainty. You can use your completed version to prepare your own area.
The course does not provide incident response, negotiation, forensic services or individual legal advice. Payment decisions and possible reporting duties require separate assessment in the relevant jurisdiction.
What you will work on
Identify decision-relevant uncertainty in an extortion incident
Assign activation, escalation and external advice to roles
Incorporate an exfiltration claim and a new deadline into the procedure
Who it is for
Senior executives
CISOs and information security leaders
Crisis management leads
Topics
Operational consequences and extortion pressure
Information needs and source quality
Crisis activation and decision rights
External legal, forensic and communication advice
Recovery assumptions and evolving incidents
Your result
Your ransomware working pack covers initial actions, specialist contacts, claim checks and escalation routes. Use it to prepare for and update an extortion incident.
Prerequisites
Basic familiarity with organisational crisis or information security processes. For preparation in your own area, an overview of critical services and access to relevant decision roles are sufficient. A substitute case allows completion without sensitive information.
Format and approach
Planned as four to five hours of self-study with staged case decisions and self-checks with explanations.
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