When Disinformation Spreads Faster Than the Truth
In the digital era, a cyber incident doesn’t just unfold in networks — it plays out in the media, on social platforms, and in the minds of customers, employees, and regulators. Echo Chamber, a CyberEd.io interactive, immerses participants in the chaos of a coordinated disinformation campaign, forcing organizations to defend not only their systems, but also their reputation.
Echo Chamber: The scenario
The simulation begins with a credible breach alert in the SOC, but almost instantly, external noise drowns out the signal:
- Fake Social Media Posts: Screenshots of “stolen customer data” begin circulating, amplified by bots.
- Phishing Campaign: Employees receive urgent emails claiming to be from IT, instructing them to change credentials on a spoofed portal.
- Leaked “Hacktivist Statement”: A fabricated manifesto, falsely attributed to a well-known threat group, is posted on underground forums.
- Media Inquiry: A journalist demands comment on “confirmed leaks,” citing unverified screenshots.
- Board Email: Executives receive anonymous claims that the breach is worse than IT admits.
Participants must decide how to separate truth from fabrication, while communicating with employees, regulators, and customers under the glare of misinformation.
Echo Chamber transforms reputation defense from a reactive scramble into a trained competency.
By immersing teams in disinformation chaos, it prepares enterprises to separate fact from fiction — and protect trust when it matters most.
Schedule Echo ChamberLearning outcomes
Echo Chamber teaches that defending reputation is as critical as defending infrastructure:
Signal vs. noise filtering
Distinguish real IOC-based evidence from fabricated narratives.
Crisis communications
Craft timely, accurate, and legally sound statements under media pressure.
Employee awareness
Defend against phishing and rumor-driven insider actions.
Threat intelligence application
Correlate claims against real intel feeds and forensic artifacts.
Trust preservation
Maintain stakeholder confidence even amid uncertainty.
Cross-functional coordination:
Synchronize actions between SOC, legal, and communications teams to ensure a unified, credible response.
Enterprise value
For enterprises, Echo Chamber is both a technical and strategic test:
- Exposes Gaps in Communications Plans: Do you have templated statements for unverified claims?
- Validates Internal Alignment: Are legal, PR, and SOC teams aligned before going public?
- Tests Monitoring Capabilities: Can your org track disinformation campaigns across social and dark web channels?
- Builds Board & Regulator Confidence: Shows proactive defense of reputation alongside incident containment.
Industry-tailored injects may include:
Delivery models
CyberEd.io offers Kill Switch in flexible formats:
On-site workshops:
Facilitator-driven disinformation injects with simulated media/social noise.
Remote platforms:
Secure dashboards delivering fake posts, phishing attempts, and regulator queries in real time.
Hybrid exercises:
Combine executive comms with SOC intel validation streams.
Custom tailoring:
Focus scenarios on industry-specific reputation risks.
Post-exercise enablement
CyberEd.io ensures Echo Chamber translates into real-world improvements:
- After-Action Reports: Annotated timeline of comms and technical validation decisions.
- Evidence Packets: Sample disinformation injects for training reuse.
- Performance Dashboards: Time-to-truth, stakeholder communication clarity, intel validation speed.
- Updated Playbooks: Reputation response frameworks for future incidents.
At-a-glance
Audience:
CISOs, CIOs, SOC leads, PR/communications teams, compliance/legal.
Duration:
2–3 hours.
Difficulty level:
Moderate to advanced, tailored for comms-heavy or SOC-heavy teams.
Industry:
Financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, government/public sector.
Format:
On-site, remote, or hybrid with custom tailoring.
Deliverables:
Inject library, performance metrics, updated comms playbooks.