The U.S. financial and energy sectors are no strangers to foreign government hackers, from Iranian denial-of-service attacks on American banks to Russian reconnaissance of industrial control systems. Less-familiar territory, however, is how companies would work with the U.S. government to respond to a cross-sector cyberattack during a geopolitical crisis.
About 20 private-sector executives and former government officials gathered last month in Washington, D.C., to take a stab at that question.
A tabletop exercise hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a think tank, hashed out what companies and federal agencies might ask of each other in the 72 hours after a disruptive series of computer intrusions.