Certified: The CISSP Prepcast

Welcome to The Bare Metal Cyber CISSP Prepcast. This series helps you prepare for the ISC squared CISSP exam with focused explanations and practical context.
In this episode, we’re exploring Business Continuity Testing and Tabletop Exercises—two essential components of ensuring that your organization can operate effectively during and after unexpected disruptions. It’s one thing to have a business continuity plan documented in a binder or saved in the cloud. But it’s quite another to know that the plan actually works under pressure. That’s where testing comes in. Business continuity testing and tabletop exercises bring your plans to life, challenge your assumptions, and identify gaps that can only be revealed through practice. As a future Certified Information Systems Security Professional, you’ll need to understand how to prepare, execute, and improve continuity testing strategies that truly strengthen your organization’s resilience.
Let’s begin by understanding why business continuity testing is so important. At its core, business continuity testing is the structured process of validating your organization’s ability to maintain essential operations during and after a disruption. This may include natural disasters, cyberattacks, utility failures, or even internal system outages.
Effective testing helps ensure that your continuity plans are not just well-written, but realistic and achievable. It validates whether systems can actually be recovered, whether communication flows smoothly, whether staff know their roles, and whether the timeframes you’ve documented—like recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives—are actually attainable.
Testing uncovers issues that you might not anticipate from reading the plan alone. Maybe a key contact list is outdated. Maybe remote workers can’t access critical systems during a simulated outage. Maybe executive leadership is unsure when to declare an incident. These types of problems only surface through active testing.
Regular testing reduces risk and increases organizational confidence. It supports compliance by proving that continuity controls are not only in place, but functioning. And it enhances preparedness by building experience and familiarity before a real crisis occurs.
Now let’s walk through the common types of business continuity tests. Each testing method offers different insights and levels of engagement, and the most mature programs use a combination of all of them.
First, we have checklist or walkthrough tests. These are structured reviews of the continuity plan, often conducted as meetings. Stakeholders walk through each section of the plan using a checklist to verify accuracy, completeness, and clarity. This is a low-impact way to ensure everyone understands the plan and that it reflects the current business and technical environment.
Next are simulation exercises. These involve active testing of responses to simulated scenarios. Teams are presented with a hypothetical disruption, and they respond as if the event were real. For example, you might simulate a ransomware attack that locks down your data center. The goal is to evaluate how staff react, make decisions, and execute procedures.
Then there are functional exercises. These are focused tests that validate specific parts of your continuity plan—such as restoring a server from backup, switching operations to a secondary site, or rerouting customer support calls to a different center. These exercises verify whether specific processes and technologies work as intended.
Finally, there are full-scale exercises. These are complex, high-fidelity tests that simulate a real-world disaster with full participation across business units, technical teams, and external partners. These tests are the most resource-intensive but provide the highest level of insight into organizational readiness.
Each of these test types has value. Checklist reviews verify documentation. Simulations test decision-making. Functional exercises test capabilities. Full-scale exercises test everything. Together, they provide comprehensive assurance that your continuity plans are effective and actionable.
Now let’s look more closely at tabletop exercises. Tabletop exercises are structured discussion-based sessions where participants walk through a hypothetical incident scenario in a low-stress setting. They’re designed to stimulate conversation, clarify roles, and evaluate how your organization would respond under pressure—without actually deploying systems or simulating live operations.
These exercises typically involve representatives from across departments: technical teams, operations, business units, legal, human resources, and executive leadership. A facilitator presents a scenario—say, a massive power outage affecting your primary data center—and participants talk through how they would respond, step by step.
Tabletop exercises reveal a lot. They highlight misunderstandings, coordination challenges, decision bottlenecks, and communication issues. They also reinforce role clarity. When participants talk through how they would escalate the situation, who they would notify, and what actions they would take, they build confidence in the plan and in each other.
A good tabletop exercise presents realistic challenges. The scenarios should be based on real threats your organization could face—cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions, or regional disasters. Scenarios should include decision points and complications that force participants to think, coordinate, and sometimes disagree. That’s how learning happens.
Facilitators play a key role. They guide the discussion, ask probing questions, and help document key insights. At the end of the session, facilitators summarize lessons learned and guide a discussion of follow-up actions. These might include updating the continuity plan, conducting additional training, or improving communication protocols.
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Let’s now explore how to conduct effective tabletop exercises. Start by clearly defining your objectives. What are you trying to evaluate? Is the focus on communication? Decision-making? Escalation? Role clarity? Your objectives will guide the scenario design and participant selection.
Next, create a detailed exercise plan. This includes the scenario itself, expected outcomes, rules of engagement, and logistical details. Choose participants who represent a range of perspectives—technical staff, business leaders, support functions, and anyone with responsibilities during a disruption.
Scenarios should be challenging but realistic. They should include enough detail to feel authentic, but not so much that they overwhelm participants. Present the scenario in stages, introducing new developments to keep the discussion moving.
Facilitate the session with structure. Keep participants focused, encourage everyone to contribute, and guide the discussion without dominating it. Ask clarifying questions and record key points. After the session, document what happened—who said what, what decisions were made, and what improvements were identified.
Follow up is critical. Tabletop exercises must produce actionable results. If a contact list was outdated, update it. If decision authority was unclear, clarify it. If procedures were skipped or misunderstood, retrain the team. Use the findings to make meaningful improvements to your continuity planning and incident management.
Let’s now turn to the security controls that support effective continuity testing. Start with secure communication platforms. During testing—and real events—you need tools for collaboration, document sharing, and decision-making. These platforms must support access control, audit logging, and secure transmission.
Logging and monitoring are essential during exercises. Collect data on system performance, user actions, communication flow, and alert response. This data provides evidence for evaluating the success of your test and for identifying any technical issues.
Access to testing plans, continuity documentation, and scenario materials must be tightly controlled. These materials may include sensitive system diagrams, role assignments, or contact details. Use encryption and role-based permissions to prevent unauthorized access.
Audits and assessments of your testing environments and procedures help validate that they meet policy and compliance requirements. If you’re subject to regulatory oversight, your continuity tests may be reviewed during audits. Keep records, ensure traceability, and demonstrate alignment with standards.
Maintain secure documentation of all test outcomes, including lessons learned and follow-up actions. These records demonstrate accountability and support continuous improvement.
Speaking of continuous improvement—this is a core principle of all business continuity and testing activities. Your continuity plans and exercises must evolve with your organization. Review them regularly, and revise them after changes in business operations, technology, staffing, or the threat landscape.
Use the results of each test to make targeted improvements. Ask what went wrong, what went right, and how you can get better. Involve stakeholders from across departments to ensure that your plans are realistic, complete, and aligned with business priorities.
Make training an ongoing process. Don’t assume that once someone participates in a test, they’re set for life. Roles change. Systems evolve. People forget. Offer refresher training, cross-training, and new hire onboarding sessions to keep everyone prepared.
And finally, foster a culture of collaboration and readiness. Continuity planning is not just a technical task—it’s a business responsibility. Engage leadership, empower teams, and build a shared commitment to resilience.
Thank you for tuning into the CISSP Prepcast by Bare Metal Cyber. Visit baremetalcyber.com for additional episodes, comprehensive CISSP study resources, and personalized certification support. Strengthen your understanding of Business Continuity Testing and Tabletop Exercises, and we'll consistently support your journey toward CISSP certification success.