Mark Hoffman

It’s a normal workday until your systems seem sluggish. The next thing you know you have an unwelcome image on your website. You’ve been hacked and the bad actor wants money. What do you do?

In this hands-on, interactive session, you’ll be part of the crisis management team as Mark walks you through what could be your worst nightmare: A Ransomware Attack. Mark will present you with a plausible scenario explaining how a bad actor has locked your key systems. You will provide your thoughts on what actions should be taken and key decisions that will likely need to be made. Don’t wait until you’re facing this situation for real! The more we sweat in training, the less we bleed in battle. Book this exercise today!

Recently my grandson suggested that I read a book that he just finished. It’s in the 9–12-year-old section of our local bookstore. In the story, two 14-year-old friends are in the midst of a heavy debate: Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? It got me thinking, too often in our risk and resilience planning, we focus on duck-sized ducks and horse-sized horses. But in reality, we’re often thrown into chaos because we are approached by something we haven’t considered. In this session, Mark will provide you with ways to build principle-based strategies and tools that will allow you to respond to disruptive events, unexpected or otherwise.

2022 saw the first policy milestone in the UK requiring organizations in the financial sector to develop and implement a program of operational resilience. While those regulations aren’t in place in North America, the principles requiring resilience are sound – and can be applied to any organization. In this session, Mark will explain what it means to be “resilient” as an organization and what steps you should be taking to adapt and respond to, recover, and learn from operational disruption. Mark will share specific techniques for defining your organization’s critical functions, key dependencies, and operational tolerances.

 For years, organizations have treated cybersecurity as a risk that IT could solve alone. Those days are long gone. Beyond IT, organizations need to add a crisis management component to their cyber toolkit. Crisis management teams must plan for key decisions that they will likely face during a major cyber incident. 

In this interactive workshop, Mark will lead your team through a series of decisions. Your team will define your default position for each decision – based on your organization’s core values, principles, and risk appetite. Mark will also challenge each default position with a series of extenuating circumstances that could change your perspective over time. Would your organization be likely to pay a ransom? Is there anything that could change your position? Book this workshop and build the foundation for the cyber crisis management response plan.