This guide contains the following sections:

Crisis Sim Overview

Our Crisis Sim offers users a realistic and interactive training module where users can engage with simulated crisis scenarios such as cyber attacks and security incidents. This challenges users to think quickly, make decisions under pressure, and improve their crisis management skills in a controlled environment. By participating in the Crisis Sim, users can enhance their incident response capabilities, test their critical thinking abilities, and better prepare themselves to handle real-world crisis events.

By dropping incident and crisis management teams into a range of dynamic scenarios through a browser, we develop skills across silos, create cognitively agile individuals, and measure and map outcomes.

You can find more information on our website here: Crisis Simulator.

Features and Functions of Crisis Sim

Crisis Sim offers a range of features and key functions that enhance the user experience and promote effective crisis management training. Some of the fundamental features and functions of Crisis Sim include:

Simulated Crisis Scenarios: The Crisis Sim provides users with realistic and immersive simulated crisis scenarios, such as cyber attacks, data breaches, and security incidents, to challenge their decision-making and crisis management skills.
Scalable and repeatable - Both technical and non-technical teams are empowered to run, build, and evidence their own realistic cyber crisis exercises. Simulations can be completed at a time of each person's choosing, giving flexibility to a dispersed workforce.
Interactive Decision-Making: Users are required to make quick and strategic decisions in response to the simulated crisis scenarios, testing their ability to think critically and act decisively under pressure.
Real-Time Feedback and Assessment: The Crisis Sim offers real-time feedback and assessment on user performance, allowing individuals to track their progress, identify areas for improvement, and measure their crisis management proficiency.
Scenario Variety and Complexity: The Crisis Sim includes a variety of crisis scenarios with varying levels of complexity, providing users with a diverse range of challenges to enhance their crisis management skills and preparedness.
Skill Development and Training: Through engaging with the Crisis Sim, users can develop essential crisis management skills, improve their incident response capabilities, and gain practical experience in handling high-pressure situations.

Why and how to use Crisis Sim

Our scenarios reflect how a crisis unfolds in the real world. This maximizes your organization's crisis preparation, engages your teams with relevant storylines and contextual media, and embeds learning through muscle memory.

Assess - Based on the latest cybersecurity threats, scenarios are designed to simulate the real-world crises your organization is likely to face, from ransomware attacks to supply chain compromises.
Build - By running cross-functional micro-drills and inter-team exercises, you can build a baseline picture of your organization's crisis response capabilities and your participants' confidence. Results and data are available to you within Crisis Sim results, After Action Reporting, but also through our Capability by Area Reports.
Prove - Build a whole scenario or incorporate specific injects to tackle the exact areas that need improvement, based on the evidence gathered. Ensure you continually strengthen those that are already performing well.

Crisis Sim terminology and definitions

Crisis Sim stands for Crisis Simulator

Our exercises are based on the latest cybersecurity threats and are designed to simulate the real-world crises your organization is likely to face, from ransomware attacks to supply chain compromises.

Dynamic storylines and rich media provide insight on the direct effect that decisions have on your organization
Rich media images, videos, and voice notes add a realistic element to the scenario, adding to the pressure you’d experience in a real crisis
Customization ensures the true relevance to the threats your organization faces

Scenarios are templates

A scenario is a story in Crisis Sim that acts as a template for an exercise. Scenarios are made up of one or more injects (decision points), each of which has one or more options a participant can choose.

Users that hold the platform's Crisis Sim Manager role have permissions to create their own custom scenarios. There is also a list of prebuilt scenarios to use, created by experts at Immersive Labs.

Exercises are playable instances of scenarios

An exercise is a playable instance of a scenario that can be assigned to participants.

Users with the Crisis Sim Manager platform role have the permission to schedule exercises, which can optionally have start and end dates.

There are 3 types of exercise:

Single player
Drill
Presentation

You can find out more on exercise types here.

Injects are decision points

We call every decision point in our scenarios an inject. Participants must choose one of the options in the inject. These options are ranked by the quality of the response, which is displayed to the participant along with feedback after each option is selected, thus delivering key learning.

The options selected in the injects move the simulation along and can branch the scenario down a particular path and mold the course of action in the story, as well as impact performance indicators displayed.

Accessing and navigating Crisis Sim

If it is part of your license, find Crisis Sim under 'Exercise' in the main navigation menu in the Business Exercises area:

All users will be able to see the Assigned to me area of Crisis Sim, which allows you to find all exercises that are assigned to you. Use the filters on the left-hand side to view exercises you haven't started, exercises in progress, and those already completed.

You can view your results by selecting an exercise that has been completed and selecting the 'View Results' button.

If you are assigned the Crisis Sim Manager platform role you will also see the following areas:

Managed by me - This area includes exercises you've assigned to individuals. Visit this area to access results for exercises you've assigned and to make changes to exercises that haven't yet started.

All exercises - This is where you'll find all exercises that are running or have run in your organization.

Scenario Catalog - Here you'll find a list of all available scenarios. Scenarios are stories that form the basis of a crisis sim exercise. This area includes Immersive Labs scenarios, as well as custom scenarios created by your organization.

Schedule an Exercise

For guidance on how to schedule a Crisis Sim exercise, see our Setting up Crisis Simulations page.

Create Scenario

Refer to the 'How to create a Crisis Sim scenario' section of the Creating Custom Scenarios article.