Flight simulators are used in aviation because we can’t test every scenario in reality…it’s too dangerous.
A real life business IT program, prepared for anything? Contractors that work without simulating cyber breach scenarios throughout the year are basically up in the air in real life, waiting to be attacked.
We put together a quick, three step exercise that will act as your own flight simulator, giving you a real world view of what would happen within your organization in the event of a cyber breach, malware, ransomware or emergency loss of system access for any reason.
1. Cyber Breach Simulation – Test the Human Layer
What to do (30 – 60 minutes):
- Send a fake phishing email to your team (or ask IT / Spot Migration).
- Make it realistic: password reset, invoice, DocuSign, or “urgent” request.
- Track:
- Who clicks?
- Who enters credentials?
- Who reports it?
What this tells you:
- Whether employees recognize threats
- Whether reporting procedures exist and are used
- Your real-world breach likelihood
If people click and nothing happens next (no alerts, no response), that’s a red flag.
2. A Cyber Breach Simulation Will Test Your “Keys to the Kingdom”
What to review (1 – 2 hours):
- List your critical systems (email, cloud storage, accounting, CRM, servers).
- For each one, confirm:
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is ON
- No shared logins
- Only the right people have access
- Former employees are fully removed
What this tells you:
- How easy it is for an attacker (or ex-employee) to move laterally
- Whether a single stolen password could sink the company
Most breaches succeed because access was never cleaned up.
Simulate “It Already Happened”
What to do (45 minutes):
Ask your leadership team one question:
“If we discovered a breach right now, what do we do in the first 24 hours?”
Specifically:
- Who notices it?
- Who shuts down access?
- Who talks to customers, vendors, or regulators?
- Who restores systems from backup?
- Where are backups stored, and have they been tested?
What this tells you:
- Whether you have a response plan or just hope
- How long you’d be offline
- Whether backups are real or theoretical
If answers are vague, your risk is high, even if your tech is decent.
By running a few focused tests and asking the right questions, any contractor can quickly understand where they’re exposed and what actually matters. You don’t need perfection, you need visibility. Because the best time to find your weaknesses is before someone else does.
