2025-12-13 –, Track 2
Across over 30 tabletop exercises with SOC/IR teams globally, we identified five persistent gaps that exist across industries - regardless of size or maturity. This talk uncovers those gaps and shares actionable strategies to bridge them. Attendees will leave with a framework to design more impactful tabletops and harden their SOC practices before real incidents strike.
Tabletop exercises are a powerful tool to test response readiness - but only if done thoughtfully. This session will walk through the top five recurring failure points we observed across real engagements in finance, energy, consulting, technology, and more. You’ll see:
The gap between written IR plans and what happens in practice
How ambiguous roles slow decision-making
Why lessons often die in slide decks
Where legal/regulatory steps get missed
The danger in ignoring your “crown jewel” systems
For each gap, I’ll share a real scenario, a practical fix, and guidance on embedding improvements into your process. Expect hands-on tips to make your next tabletop far more meaningful - turning a simulation into real organisational resilience.
Ashu is the co-founder and co-CEO of TryHackMe, the world's largest online cybersecurity training platform. Used by millions of aspiring ethical hackers and defenders, TryHackMe provides a comprehensive environment to learn the technical cybersecurity skills essential for breaking into the cybersecurity industry. TryHackMe’s mission is to make the world more digitally secure, in an ever-evolving security landscape, by bridging the cybersecurity skills gap through interactive, gamified, and affordable learning experiences.
At TryHackMe, Ashu spends a lot of his time with TryHackMe's portfolio of over 900 SOC and IR leaders, learning about their challenges, and how TryHackMe can support them with skill and cyber capability development.
Prior to starting his own company, Ashu worked as a security consultant at Accenture specializing in Cloud Security. He also has a MEng in Computer Science from UCL.