Infiniqo
Cyber Risk Preparedness via Gamified Simulations

Cyber insurance is a relatively new concept for many. But as cyber risks continue to grow, more and more companies are insuring their assets against the potential damage of threats. The cyber insurance market is expected to reach $21.4 Billion by 2025. There has been a limited focus on risk-preparedness solutions and quantitative measures for insurers to accurately assess the readiness of policyholders ability to manage cyber risk.

On the other hand, insured organizations do not receive adequate cyber risk mitigation training. Companies must test their teams' abilities to respond to cyber threats to identify and remediate potential risks and build resilience.

In short, minimizing cyber risk is in the best interest of everyone, including carriers, MGAs, underwriters, TPAs, benefits administrators, and cybersecurity teams.

This is where Infiniqo's Axon and their suite of innovative solutions that leverages the power of gamification (and much more) can be of great value.

Founded by Ramki Duriseti and Jamie (Jae) McKinney, Infiniqo offers Molecules, an end-to-end Holistic Risk & Response Simulation(s), and Incident Response Management Platform that en- ables enterprises & companies to examine and improve their cyber risk posture and preparedness on a continual basis. By simulating cyber-attacks, Infiniqo can tell how a company would react to specific incidents and where they stand regarding cyber risk preparedness and responsiveness. This enables cyber insurance companies and underwriters to better assess their clients' defensive positioning on cyber risk. They can also effectuate retentive training sessions—via stimulating cyber risk management, situational awareness, and decision intelligence—to minimize their policyholders' cyber risk.

Turning Game Players into Crisis Solvers

Axon delivers an interactive 2D, 3D and VR video-game-style rendering of real-world cyber-attack simulations (Situation Rooms) with a configurable decision-impact engine. Each 'incident' would play out like an interactive 2D, or 3D video game, complete with exercises and challenges that prompt teamwork and put employees to the test. The highly immersive, multi-player gaming simulation turns front-line employees into digital avatars or 'players' who must work together quickly, leveraging their experience and decision-making intelligence to thwart or minimize the attack and 'win' or successfully 'not pay the ransom’.

Infiniqo collects employee photographs and situation requirements of the session beforehand to create complete 2D or 3D avatar models (on-screen characters), live challenges, and contours the simulation based on how the organization is structured to create a higher fidelity experience. Every 60 to 90 minutes gaming session begins with 10 to 15 players in a pre-created virtual situation room.

Each player is assigned a real-life incidence response/risk mitigation role, and a Hollywood-style movie trailer is presented based on the setup of the characters and the situation. The game demands different thought responses from the players depending on the desired short-term and long-term outcomes. It prompts hypothetical questions, real-time stoppages, decision-making tips, discussions, and voting. The simulation will push players to get through the situation collaboratively using critical thinking techniques and resources they can leverage to neutralize the simulated attack. Based on how teams work together in solving a crisis, Infiniqo provides an assessment of the resourcefulness and performance showcased by the players and gives suggestions for improvement.

“Our value proposition is to create a musclememory that delivers smart responses to reallife situations & incidents”

This ultimately translates to better real-world risk mitigation and management capabilities during an actual cyber-attack. In parallel, insurers quantify existing risks, identify their clients' cybersecurity strengths/weaknesses, and create well-aligning policies while helping them come up with effective incidence response plans.

Stronger With Each Challenge—Experiential Learning for Better Outcomes

"In conferences across the UK, US, and Canada, Axon has generated great interest from insurance carriers, brokers, cyber attorneys, forensics personnel, and risk managers," says Ramki Duriseti, CEO, of Infiniqo.

Insurers often call upon Infiniqo to assess the cyber risk of their clients. In one such instance, a large insurance broker wanted Infiniqo to ascertain the cyber risk profile of its primary policyholder—a multinational financial institution located in Toronto. The company was also interested in creating a personalized cyber tabletop exercise for the financial institution. The person in charge of the task was the institution's risk manager, who worked closely with their CISO. He wanted In- finiqo to set up the exercise, which would be introduced and conducted by himself and the institution's designated cyber attorney.

Infiniqo began its engagement by collecting headshots of all participants (employees). Next, the company created 2D character models for each team member and hired voiceover artists to bring them to life. As a final step, Infiniqo collaborated with the institution's risk manager and the cyber attorney to create a data breach scenario.

Infiniqo launched the virtual session, simulating an ultra- realistic rendering of a potential cyber-attack. Players were thrust into the virtual situation room and made to tackle the dynamic situation by collaborating and troubleshooting issues, sharpening their critical thinking and decision-making skills. The risk manager and cyber attorney were astounded by several eye-opening moments during the virtual breach.

They saw a copy of themselves and what the situation could be in reality.

The session gave them a real immersive tabletop experience instead of the traditional paper-based exercises that they practiced in the past. After the session, Infiniqo prepared assessments for the PR, legal, communications, and IT teams, highlighting their cybersecurity weaknesses and methods for improving their security posture.

Diversifying Axon's Value Proposition

Infiniqo breaks down the risk management process for companies into four phases. Building a company's "awareness" of cyber risks is the first step. The following "exercise" phase helps establish practical preparedness in every person. It enables the organization to visualize how they can respond to the attack in the least disruptive way. This leads to improved "responsiveness" in cyber management, incident management, business interruptions, or any other situation. Lastly, organizations learn to quickly and cost-effectively "recover" from any adverse situation.

Infiniqo wants clients to promote their employees from players to crisis managers by leveraging its solution. Jamie (Jae) McKinney, founder and Chief Product Officer of Infiniqo, emphasizes, “Our value proposition is to create a muscle- memory that delivers smart responses to real-life situations & incidents.” Interestingly enough, this capability came from Infiniqo's origins as a neurosurgery simulation solution that Duriseti and McKinney later repurposed for the cyber insurance/ risk management market.

Axon delivers an interactive 2D, 3D and VR video-game-style rendering of realworld cyber-attack simulations (Situation Rooms) with a configurable decisionimpact engine

Infiniqo is constantly expanding their platform’s capabilities to facilitate multiple areas of risk management and training. As a result, various industries with different decision- making procedures will soon be able to create situation rooms that meet their needs.

The company is also developing a configurable platform (SaaS model) that can simulate physical situations such as natural disasters, kidnappings, active shooters, armed intruders, and civil unrest events. “Infiniqo is nurturing creative content development talent, and processes that will allow us to quickly scale our long-term vision of configuring situation rooms and scenarios to allow for greater reach and impact,” say McKinney & Duriseti.