Enter the War Room- Crisis Simulations (Critical Infrastructure)

Courtney Guss, AVP of Crisis Management at Semperis, leads a simulated tabletop exercise titled ‘Operation Blind Spot’ for HIP 2026. The exercise focuses on a critical infrastructure meltdown scenario involving a fictitious electric utility, IronVale Power and Light, which is targeted by a red team known as Volt Typhoon. The simulation pits red team attackers, using methods like phishing, vendor compromise, and social media disinformation, against a blue team named Grid Command. The teams navigate various rounds of strategic attacks and counter-attacks, covering topics such as initial access, network reconnaissance, privilege escalation, device disruption, and ransomware extortion. The exercise concludes with the blue team refusing a $50,000,000 ransom demand and focusing on recovery through zero trust environments and information sharing with federal partners.