Tabletop Exercise
What is Tabletop Exercise?
A discussion-based exercise where team members walk through simulated scenarios in a classroom setting. Tabletop exercises test incident response plans, business continuity procedures, and decision-making processes without activating real systems.
Frameworks that govern tabletop exercise
What the standards actually require on tabletop exercise
Requirements naming tabletop exercise across 6 standards, quoted from the control text.
Advance planning with police, fire and other key stakeholders gives everyone clear expectations and limits. Where it can, the organization should cultivate links with police at all levels, national, state, local, tribal and territorial, bring them into its tra...
ansi-asis-wvpi-aa-2020-workplace-violence-and-active-assailant::A.2.4 · A.2.4 Emergency management liaisons →The RMP must give the name, phone and email of the local emergency planning and response organisations with which the source last coordinated, the date of the most recent coordination and the federal or state emergency plan requirements that apply;
epa-risk-management-program-40-cfr-part-68::68.180 · § 68.180 Emergency response program and exercises (RMP content) →Management selects exercise and test methods by size, complexity and business, using the more thorough methods to verify the plan's viability: full-scale exercises that recover business processes with full resources and validate internal and external interdepe...
ffiec-it-examination-handbook::BCM-VII.G · VII.G Exercise and Test Methods (Business Continuity Management) →Test each recovery plan at least once every 15 calendar months by recovering from an actual incident, a paper drill or tabletop exercise, or an operational exercise.
nerc-cip::CIP-009 R2.1 · CIP-009-6 R2.1: Test recovery plans every 15 calendar months →Operate recovery capability aligned with FIPS 199 impact level + NIST RMF integration per NIST SP 800-34 Rev 1 Appendix F (Sample Plans per Impact Level) + Chapter 4 (Information System Contingency Plan Development).
NISTSP34-8 · Recovery Capability by Impact Level, RTO/RPO, and Integration with NIST RMF →Conduct regular game days and tabletop exercises for credential compromise, ransomware and data breach scenarios to test plans, tools and team readiness.
SEC10-BP07 · Run simulations →Questions people ask about tabletop exercise
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