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Rehearse the worst day,
with real malware.
Vigriðr builds a copy of your environment, runs real ransomware inside it, and puts your technical team and executives through the decisions as they unfold. Your production systems are never touched.
A tabletop is a conversation. This is not.
In a tabletop exercise, people talk through what they would do. In a Vigriðr war game, they do it. We build a replica of your environment, release real ransomware into it, and your team has to detect, contain and recover while the clock runs and the scenario reacts to their decisions.
At the same time, your executives face the decisions that define a real incident: whether to shut systems down, when to notify regulators and insurers, what to tell customers, whether to engage law enforcement. Scenarios draw on the incidents we have responded to across 600+ engagements, adapted to your sector and regulatory obligations.
- A replica environment built to mirror the systems that matter to you
- A scenario designed around the threats most likely to hit your sector
- Live exercise facilitation for technical and executive participants
- A full after-action report: what worked, what failed and why
- Specific improvements to your plan, communications and technical controls
- Evidence of a tested plan for your board and insurer
Build, release, decide, debrief.
Design
We agree the level, the audience and the scenario, and map the systems and decisions it needs to test.
Build the copy
We stand up an isolated replica of the relevant parts of your environment, so real malware can run without risk to production.
Run the game
We release the ransomware and inject developments. Your technical team responds while your executives make the calls.
After-action
A debrief on the day, then a written report with findings and prioritized improvements.
Pick the level your team is ready for.
Train
Build familiarity. Your team works through a ransomware incident in the replica with guidance, learning roles, tools and the order of decisions.
Validate
Test the plan you have. Your team follows its own runbooks against a live scenario, and we record where they hold and where they break.
Stress-test
Add pressure. Less warning, more complications and competing priorities, to find the limits of your people and your plan.
What your executives will face.
- Which operations to keep running, degrade or shut down
- Regulator, insurer and law enforcement notification timing
- Customer, staff and media communications
- Legal privilege and evidence preservation
- Whether to engage with a ransom demand, and under what conditions
- Board briefing and post-incident governance
Who it is for
Executive teams, boards and insurers who want a tested plan on file rather than a document nobody has used. Also technical teams who want to practise containment against real malware before they have to do it for real.
- IR retainer, the team on contract for the real day
- Tabletop exercises, playbooks and facilitated discussion first
- Penetration testing, close the gaps the game exposed
- Ransomware readiness, score the controls behind the plan
What buyers ask.
We did a tabletop exercise.
A tabletop is a conversation. A war game runs real malware in a copy of your environment while your executives decide. It shows what your team actually does, not what they say they would do.
Is it safe to run real ransomware?
It runs only inside an isolated replica we build for the exercise. Nothing touches your production systems or data.
Our executives are not technical. Will they keep up?
They do not need to. Their part of the exercise is the business decisions: shutdowns, notifications, communications and legal exposure. The technical team handles the malware.
What do we have at the end?
A full after-action report with specific improvements, and a record that your plan has been tested. Boards and insurers increasingly ask for that.
Find out before it is real.
Put an engineer on a call to plan a Vigriðr war game at the level that fits your team. No charge, no commitment.

