Malware Infection Tabletop Exercise Scenario

This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.

What this hour is for

Malware Infection Tabletop Exercise Scenario is a tabletop for Malware Infection. A host you administer is reported with a blocked file or many renamed files. You do not infect a host, and you do not run a sample.

A tabletop is a conversation with a clock. The starter asks who owns the first 15 minutes, what you isolate, who may speak, and what you do if backups or logs are missing. Nobody touches the live system. The generator drafts text. It is not legal advice and it does not replace your incident process.

Example Org is a placeholder. A real customer, a real account, and a real payment do not go in the draft.

192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you publish because a draft included them.

The change you can finish

Apply nothing while you are writing the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the system named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the system, then decide.

Rollback is the file, the record, or the snapshot you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.

Write the system, domain, or log source, and confirm you administer it.
Save the current file, record, or export before any draft is applied.
Read the draft and delete every line this ticket did not name.
Replace a sample password, a sample exclude, example.com, and any secret.
Apply nothing during the reading.
Read the result back and compare it with the ticket.
Stop. The next change is a different page.

Mistakes that outlive the statement

Malware Infection tabletop goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.

Pasting a draft you did not read.
The wrong system.
A secret in the ticket or in git.
Two changes in one window.
No copy saved before the change.
A documentation address or example.com left in a record you publish.
Disabling a firewall, antivirus, or tamper protection to make a check pass.
Calling the generator output a finished production change.
Running the scenario on production.
Sending the notice during the reading.
A real customer name in the draft.
A payment or a credential used as part of the exercise.

Decisions to write down

One decision for Malware Infection tabletop: The scenario is Malware Infection. The room is a tabletop, or the draft is unsent. Counsel is named before any external notice. No production system is in the exercise. And example Org was replaced in the copy you keep.

Checks before you call it done

Confirm this before you call the change done: The scenario is written. The starter was read. Nothing was sent. Production was not touched. No secret is in the note. And three follow-ups are written, or the note stops. If one of those fails, stop.

# tabletop: Malware Infection.
# Not legal advice. Not a production exercise.
# Do not send this during the reading.
# A host you administer is reported with a blocked file or many renamed files. You do not infect a host, and you do not run a sample.
# 192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you publish because a draft included them.

Before you leave the system

Malware Infection Tabletop Exercise Scenario ends when the system in the note is the system in the ticket. If it is not, stop.

The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log in, does not scan, and does not send mail.

prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, or a token you save. A sample password is replaced. It is not a password you keep.

One change is the window. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it.

If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. Restore the copy you took first.

A second person reads the scope aloud. If they cannot find it in the ticket, the note is not done.

This page is a planning guide. It is not legal advice, not an audit opinion, not a vendor manual, and not the text of a standard. You do not disable a security control to make a check pass. You do not use the page against a system you do not administer.

Tools for this guide

These tools run in the browser on this site. They do not log into your machines.

Malware Infection Tabletop Exercise Generator

Malware Infection Incident Response Guide

More in this cluster

The pillar for this page, and the next published pages filed with it.