3 Tips for Countering the Chaos of a Cyber Crisis

An incident response plan is a comforting document. It’s structured, logical, and lives neatly in a folder.

A real cyber crisis is none of those things.

A crisis is chaotic, often fueled by conflicting information, and unfolds at a blistering pace. It’s the moment the playbook is stress-tested against the raw, high-pressure reality of a live attack. Most people only notice cybersecurity when something goes wrong. But for practitioners, the SOC Managers and analysts on the front lines, true readiness is forged in the unglamorous, often invisible, daily grind. The true measure of an organization's security posture isn't found in its compliance reports or technology stack; it’s revealed in the crucible of that real-time response.

This is where the quiet, relentless, and often unseen preparation meets its ultimate test. It’s the demanding, painstaking effort that transforms ordinary teams into resilient powerhouses. It’s the moment you discover whether your team panics or performs under pressure.
‍

The "Fog of War": The Human Reality of a Cyber Crisis

When a significant cyber event occurs, the technical challenge is only one piece of the puzzle. As a leader, you are immediately thrown into a "fog of war," grappling with a dozen competing priorities at once. The neat phases of an attack become a tangled mess of difficult decisions.

Your technical teams are in a relentless race against time, trying to contain the threat while the attacker is still on the network. They are locked in a constant "cat and mouse game" with adversaries, where tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) change almost daily. But you’re also facing critical external pressures. When do you disclose the incident? Do you alert the attacker by shutting them out too early, potentially causing them to detonate their objectives and maximize destruction? Or do you monitor their activity to gather intelligence, buying time while balancing the risk of further damage?

These are not just technical decisions; they are business decisions with far-reaching consequences. You have regulators, law enforcement, and executive stakeholders to manage, each with their own demands and timelines. All of this happens while your teams are sleep-deprived, making split-second choices that will be scrutinized for months to come. 

The psychological toll cannot be overstated. Being on call 24/7 means never truly having rest, constantly wondering, "Is my phone going to ring?". This is the anatomy of a crisis that plans on paper fail to capture—the complex, human element that determines success or failure.
‍

The Misconceptions That Undermine Crisis Management 

In the heat of a crisis, several common misconceptions about cybersecurity are exposed as dangerously flawed. These fallacies often create a false sense of security that evaporates the moment a real threat materializes.

One of the most pervasive myths is that technology alone will protect the organization. While tools are critical, an overreliance on them at the expense of human capability is a recipe for disaster. As one red teamer confessed, "Tech tools will either detect an attack or they won't. Your people matter most in preventing or responding to a crisis". Similarly, the idea that GenAI can replace human judgment in a crisis is a misunderstanding of its role. While AI can enhance capabilities, it cannot replicate the experience and snap decision-making required for complex, novel scenarios.

Another flawed belief is that cybersecurity is purely an IT problem. A crisis immediately demonstrates that it is a core business problem, impacting financial stability, reputation, and regulatory standing. The most skilled cyber professionals are those with the business acumen to understand what’s truly at stake for the organization. This is why siloed thinking and poor communication between security and business units can undermine a response when it’s needed most.
‍

How The Real Work Pays Off When It Matters Most

You can’t build a crisis response capability in the middle of an ongoing crisis. It must be planned ahead of time, through a disciplined, continuous cycle of preparation, testing, and improvement. Incident response doesn't begin when the first alert hits, it begins with the real work your teams do every day to be ready.

This is why moving beyond playbooks and into proactive crisis simulations is so critical. Here’s how that preparation directly counters the chaos of a real incident:

1. It builds muscle memory to improve performance. Realistic drills and exercises do more than test technical skills; they immerse your teams in high-pressure scenarios, forcing them to make tough decisions as a situation unfolds. It’s what prevents the decision paralysis that often plagues junior team members and allows seasoned professionals to perform with precision.

2. It breaks down silos before the crisis does. A major incident is a powerful force that breaks down organizational silos, forcing collaboration between technical, legal, communications, and executive leadership teams. 

3. It delivers concrete proof of readiness. The outcome of these exercises isn't a pass/fail grade. It’s measurable, data-driven insight into your team's readiness. You can prove your resilience to your board and regulators, showing not just compliance, but genuine competence. By benchmarking performance against frameworks like NIST or DORA, you can show how quickly systems were contained and how effectively decisions were made.
   ‍

Preparing to Meet the Moment

As leaders, our responsibility is to prepare our teams not just for the technical fight, but for the human challenges of a crisis. This requires a cultural shift toward embracing the daily grind as a core function of the organization. We must promote a culture of proactive defense, where teams thrive on the quiet satisfaction of preventing crises before they start.

This means stress-testing your leadership and your teams through continuous practice. It means seeing drills and exercises not as a compliance checkbox, but as an essential tool for building the judgment, clarity, and collaboration needed to navigate the fog of war. Being truly ready isn't a stroke of luck, it's the direct result of the unseen work you and your teams do every day.

A crisis is the moment of truth. It reveals everything about your preparation, your culture, and your leadership. The work you do now determines how you will meet that moment.

To gain a deeper understanding of how to lead through a significant cyber crisis and prepare your team for the pressures of a real-world incident, join us for our upcoming webinar, The Anatomy of a Cyber Crisis: How The Real Work Meets the Moment.