Cyber Attack! The Card Game

Where do Cyber Attacks actually come from? This game demonstrates the importance of organizational maturity, teamwork, and having fun. Cyber-attacks come from all sorts of root cause problems. We’ve created a real-world "gamified training platform" for teams to practice defending against cyber-attacks. There are jokes about compliance, proper finger pointing, and how to deal with stressful situations. You’ll have so much fun you won’t even realize you’re learning.

Ultimately, we want your workplace to be able to discuss difficult cyber things. This game could be an ice breaker to significant security improvements as security is a culture. Being able to grow teamwork with teams under stress will enable success. We want you to have that.

This game was played live, for the first time ever, at the 2022 Peak Cyber Conference (https://www.peakcyberco.com/) in Colorado Springs, CO. The crowd enjoyed it. The team that played didn't even know each other and even accidentally included a minor. They seemed to have fun, you will too.

Edition 1.0 is now available! Futher updates to the game may occur.

Future expansions of this game are planned for, just give us time to build up the angst and sarcasm. If you would like to contribute, feel free to submit your ideas to us.

Instructions: Who changed a password last? Grab the Attack deck. Others grab some Defend cards [7 is a fine number]. Attackers and Defenders can be awarded points for fun, creativity, or technical competence.

1. Attacker plays an Attack card. Read the card. Try funny accents for bonus points. The bottom of the card is just additional information or words to search on the internet about.

2. Defenders read a Defend [top part of the card]. Pick a card that you think the Attacker might like. Pick a card you like. Pick a card at random. It’ll be ok.

3. Attacker picks the winner. The Defender picked gets a point. Personal biases are used daily, this is no exception. If they can’t pick timely, the team can decide for them.

4. Winner reads the Trivia question [bottom part of the card]. These vary from interview questions to certification questions to discussion leading questions that should drive discussions with specifics to your team.

5. Attacker answers. Discuss as a team. A point is awarded for correctness, but the value is in the team understanding the answer. Use analogies or stories to explain it to larger audiences.

6. Discard used cards, rotate Attacker and deck, replenish cards, and keep playing. You can play until a certain time, until a player reaches a number of points, or until you have a headache from laughing too much.