The Essential Cybersecurity Exercise Playbook: Building Cyber Resilience

Cyber resilience is not just about deploying advanced tools—it’s about validating your team’s readiness through rigorous exercises. Lester Chng’s The Essential Cybersecurity Exercise Playbook provides a structured approach to preparing for cyber crises. Here’s what it covers:

Key Sections of the Playbook

1. Executing a Single Exercise

• Develop objectives (Chapter 1).
• Collaborate with third parties (Chapter 2).
• Choose exercise modalities (Chapter 3).
• Create realistic injects (Chapter 4).
• Facilitate exercises effectively (Chapter 5).
• Encourage team engagement (Chapter 6).

2. Establishing an Exercise Program

• Build a sustainable program (Chapter 7).
• Justify funding with a business case (Chapter 8).
• Design ransomware simulations (Chapter 9).

3. Bonus Resources

• 120 facilitation questions (Chapter 10).
• 30 exercise objectives (Chapter 11).
• Ransomware exercise templates (Chapter 12).

You Should Know: Practical Cyber Exercise Commands & Steps

Validate your team’s readiness with these actionable steps:

1. Simulating Ransomware Attacks (Linux/Windows)

• Linux (Detect Malicious Activity):

  </li>
  </ul>
  
  <h1>Monitor file changes in critical directories</h1>
  
  sudo auditctl -w /etc/ -p wa -k etc_changes
  sudo ausearch -k etc_changes | grep -i "modified"
  
  <h1>Check for unusual process activity</h1>
  
  ps aux | grep -E '(crypt|ransom|encrypt)'
  

  – Windows (Incident Response):

  
  <h1>Log suspicious PowerShell executions</h1>
  
  Get-WinEvent -LogName "Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational" | 
  Where-Object { $_.Message -like "*Encrypt*" }
  
  <h1>Isolate infected hosts</h1>
  
  Invoke-Command -ComputerName COMPROMISED_PC -ScriptBlock { Stop-Process -Name "malicious_process" -Force }
  

  2. Tabletop Exercise Injects (Example)

  • Inject: “An employee reports inability to access files. Suspicious .LOCKY extension detected.”
  • Response Checklist:

    </li>
    </ul>
    
    <h1>Linux: Check for ransom notes</h1>
    
    find / -name "*_README.txt" -type f 2>/dev/null
    
    <h1>Windows: Identify encrypted files</h1>
    
    dir /s /b *.LOCKY | tee C:\investigation\log.txt
    

    3. Network Segmentation Validation

    • Verify Firewall Rules:

      </li>
      </ul>
      
      <h1>Linux (iptables)</h1>
      
      sudo iptables -L -n -v | grep DROP
      
      <h1>Windows (netsh)</h1>
      
      netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name=all
      

      What Undercode Say

      Cyber exercises are the fire drills of the digital age. Without them, even the best tools fail under pressure. Use the playbook to:
      – Stress-test IR plans.
      – Train SOC teams in real-world scenarios.
      – Identify gaps in vendor response protocols.

      Pro Tip: Automate post-exercise reports with:

      
      <h1>Linux: Log analysis</h1>
      
      grep -i "alert" /var/log/suricata/fast.log | awk '{print $5}' | sort | uniq -c
      
      <h1>Windows: Export event logs</h1>
      
      wevtutil qe Security /rd:true /f:text | findstr /i "failure audit" > incident_report.txt
      

      **Expected Output:**

      • A hardened cyber defense strategy.
      • Documentation of team performance metrics.
      • Updated incident response playbooks.

      Get the Playbook: The Essential Cybersecurity Exercise Playbook

      References:

      Reported By: Foundersghostwriter There – Hackers Feeds
      Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
      Basic Verification: Pass ✅

      Join Our Cyber World:

      💬 Whatsapp | 💬 Telegram