Response & Resilience
The unified global platform to support the sector’s response to systemic threats
Confidence From Readiness
FS-ISAC helps the financial ecosystem prepare for systemic security and resilience challenges, gives it a voice when they happen, and supports member operations as they recover
FS-ISAC fortifies the sector’s resilience with our:
-
Global exercise platform
-
Unified Rapid Response platform playbooks
-
Global and local simulations
- Crisis response
Exercises
Fortifying the Sector's Resilience
FS-ISAC exercises are informed by the latest threat intelligence and customized to sector segments
Over 10K practitioners at every level of technical expertise have collaborated in our exercises to build muscle memory, benchmark their practice, and collectively strengthen the financial sector’s resilience
Exercises are only available to members
Exercise-in-a-box customized for banking, insurance, and securities
CAPS is a discussion-based exercise that builds stronger cross-functional relationships, improves incident response plans, and clarifies system vulnerabilities.
The CAPS exercise challenges incident response teams to overcome a simulated attack. Participants practice mobilizing quickly, working under pressure, and recognizing critical intelligence to mount their defense.
-
Teams participate in their own time with virtual, confidential exercise materials
-
After Action Reports provide unattributed peer data to compare responses from across the sector
CAPS is included in annual fees and is available to all members in three versions:
Hands-on keyboard simulation, real-world experience
Our Cyber Range program, powered by Immersive, provides real-world experience with new cyber threats. Participants learn how to activate:
-
Defensive tools for attack analysis
-
Network defense techniques
- Integrate proven playbooks and checklists into incident response plans
Real-time test of the ecosystem’s policies and procedures
FS-ISAC’s functional exercises test the execution of policies and procedures during real-time simulated attacks.
Steel Resolve: Designed to demonstrate firm-level incident response capabilities, cross-sector interactions, and public-private partnership activities during a large-scale attack on a fictional global financial institution. FS-ISAC observes the exercise to assess opportunities to improve information sharing and sector coordination across FS-ISAC communities. FS-ISAC incorporates these indicators into our playbook to support the incident management process across the financial ecosystem.
Cybex Paladin: Designed for small-to-mid-sized firms, the exercise tests responses to operational disruptions, such as cyber attacks or retail payment failures. It provides hands-on experience in managing, communicating, and recovering from realistic, high-pressure cybersecurity threats.
Strategic discussions on threat-specific scenarios
FS-ISAC’s tabletop exercises are focused, strategic conversations that advance the sector’s response to specific threats.
Exercises are conducted virtually and in-person, locally and globally, as either standalone opportunities or connected to an FS-ISAC event or Summit.
Recent tabletop exercise topics have included:
-
Cloud computing
-
North Korean scam workers
-
Artificial Intelligence
-
Undersea cables
-
Post-quantum computing
- Canada Incident Response Framework
Collaborative tests of frameworks, responses, and operations across industries and countries
Tri-Sector: Assesses the financial, energy, and telecommunications sectors’ Tri-Sector Playbook to uncover areas of improvement to the framework.
Locked Shields: An international, operations-based exercise organized by NATO’s CCDCOE, Locked Shields tests cybersecurity experts’ skills and strategic response to a real-time attack on national IT systems and critical infrastructure.
CyberStorm: An operations-based exercise hosted by CISA uniting the public and private sectors to discover and respond to a simulated cyber incident impacting US critical infrastructure.
National-Level Exercises: Run by FEMA, these exercises allow all levels of government, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and community groups to test operational capabilities, evaluate policies and plans, familiarize personnel with roles and responsibilities, and foster meaningful interaction and communication across the country.
GridEx: A biennial exercise hosted by North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s E-ISAC, GridEx gives E-ISAC member and partner organizations a forum to practice response to and recovery from coordinated cyber and physical security threats and incidents.
Hamilton Tabletop Exercises: In partnership with the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council, the US Department of the Treasury, law enforcement, and other US government agencies, FS-ISAC designs the Hamilton tabletop exercises to improve the public and private sectors’ coordination strategies and their response to cyber threats. Limited to US-based financial institutions, the one-day Hamilton Exercises examine a variety of cyberattacks.
Upcoming Exercises
In Our Community's Words
"Interesting as ever to see where other jurisdictions are on some of these issues.”
"As an employee that leads our cyber exercising, I found it extremely valuable to witness an operations-based test as we want to continue our exposure to this style of testing internally and externally.”
"Being the bank's IT officer, I struggle to keep up with testing and most of the time lack the ability to come up with good scenarios. I registered for this exercise thinking, why not, could be beneficial? Holy Cow, I loved it!”
"Interesting as ever to see where other jurisdictions are on some of these issues.”
"As an employee that leads our cyber exercising, I found it extremely valuable to witness an operations-based test as we want to continue our exposure to this style of testing internally and externally.”
"Driven by member-curated content, FS-ISAC continues to enhance sectoral efforts to meet the ever-present threat posed by cyber criminals. In particular, the available workshops and technical exercises have proven invaluable in helping enhance organizational preparedness."
FS-ISAC Incident Response
When the sector faces a major incident, FS-ISAC supports impacted members with key intelligence, analysis, and mitigation guidance. We support all members with global messaging, a secure information exchange, and insights from subject matter experts.
FS-ISAC Learn
FS-ISAC’s Learn offers Tier 5-8 members tailored learning opportunities for staff at every level. Over 2K online courses meet associates where they are to sharpen their cyber defense skills, elevate their cyber resilience practices, and reduce their institutions’ cybersecurity risk.