From Theory to Pressure: What the Third AI-Enabled Cybercrime Tabletop Exercise Revealed

Fortinet and UC Berkeley CLTC share lessons from the AI-enabled cybercrime tabletop exercise "Operation Black Ice," where AI-driven impersonation of a trusted third party led to cascading impacts including ransomware-driven extortion, operational disruption, and regulatory pressure under compressed timelines. The write-up underscores that the most damaging failures are governance and decision-making gaps rather than technical shortcomings, calling for multi-channel identity verification, predefined coordination models, disciplined decision cadence, and clearer third-party incident expectations.