CISO Simulator — Be the CISO. Survive five years.

• → Defend a $4M security budget under board scrutiny.
• → Respond to ransomware, insider threats, and audit failures.
• → Your ending archetype reflects every call you made — 12 to unlock.

If your last quarter included a threat-intel budget cut before a near-miss incident, you'll recognize what to do here. If it went smoothly, this is where you find out what you traded away. CISO Simulator (also known as CISO Game) is a turn-based cybersecurity strategy simulation built for working CISOs, security managers, students preparing for CISSP / CCISO / CISM, and anyone curious about the trade-offs in cybersecurity leadership. You play 20 quarters across 5 years, balancing posture, board confidence, customer trust, business friction, team morale, and budget — three of those metrics can end your tenure if you let them slip.

What you do in CISO Simulator

• Choose from 95+ security products across EDR, SIEM, IAM, AppSec, awareness, GRC, AI security, and services.
• Hire and assign Senior Analysts, Detection Engineers, IR Specialists, GRC Specialists, and a Deputy CISO.
• Respond to 50+ event scenarios: ransomware foothold, credential stuffing, S3 leak, BEC against the CFO, vendor breach, regulator inquiries (GDPR Art. 33, SEC 8-K, NYDFS Part 500, OCR HHS, DORA, CIRCIA, NIS2, ESG/CSRD), AI red-team findings, M&A diligence shocks.
• Brief the board at every annual audit. Lose them and the run ends.

New to cybersecurity? Start here

If you're trying to figure out how to enter the field, become a CISO, or pick your first certification, these long-form guides answer the most-asked questions in plain English. Each one is sourced from public salary surveys, BLS data, and ISC2 workforce studies — no vendor pitches.

• How to Start a Career in Cybersecurity The no-fluff 2026 entry guide. Three on-ramp tracks, 12-month skill plan, what entry-level JDs actually require.
• The 2026 CISO Career Roadmap From security analyst through senior IC, manager, and director to first-time CISO. Stage-by-stage skills, certs, and salaries.
• Security+ vs CISSP: Which Cert First? Cost, prep time, experience required, salary impact. Security+ is for entry; CISSP is for senior practitioners with 5+ years.
• CISO Salary in 2026 What CISOs actually earn — by stage, industry, geography, and company size. Equity, bonus, and total-comp tables sourced from public surveys.
• Is Cybersecurity a Good Career? Honest assessment for 2026: BLS-projected 33% growth, real pay progression, and the downsides (on-call, burnout, cert treadmill) nobody mentions.
• Entry-Level Cybersecurity Certifications ISC2 CC (free), Security+ ($399), Google Cybersecurity Certificate, CompTIA CCET — compared by cost, time, recognition, and outcome.

How you win

At Year 5 (Quarter 20), you need Composite Posture ≥ 70, Board Confidence ≥ 50, and cumulative overspend ≤ $350,000. You can also lose early — three consecutive quarters of board confidence under 20 means you're fired, and overspend past $700,000 ends the run immediately.

Browse the simulator

Every catalog the simulator runs against is also a public reference. Use these as a CISO-prep crib sheet, or open one tab while you play.

• Scenarios 7 starting hands — fintech IPO, healthcare ransomware year, AI startup, post-incident recovery, M&A integration, boot camp, standard SaaS.
• Risk register 52 risks the simulator tracks live — categorized External, Insider, Data, Identity, AI, Operational, Resilience, Governance.
• Investment catalog 105 vendor-neutral products: EDR, SIEM, IAM, AppSec, AI Security, GRC, services. Each entry shows cost, requirements, posture impact, mitigated risks.
• Training comparisons Honest 5-platform comparisons for 6 certifications: CISSP, CISM, CCSP, OSCP, Security+, AWS Security. Pluralsight vs Udemy vs LinkedIn vs Cybrary vs books.
• Topic hubs 5 topic hubs (cloud security, identity, compliance, AI security, ransomware) cross-referencing the risks, investments, and certs that map to each domain.
• Glossary 35+ in-game terms with their real-world equivalents — composite posture, ownership overload, knowledge loss, ramp factor, business friction, more.

Who built CISO Simulator

CISO Simulator is built and operated by CyberKIS — a cybersecurity sales engineering practice that embeds certified presales engineers into channel partners, resellers, distributors, and enterprise security teams across ZTNA, SWG, CASB, FWaaS, DLP, RBI, CSPM, and EDR. The simulator is the practice's open educational artifact — a way to make the CISO trade-offs CyberKIS engineers see in the field actually playable, vendor-neutral, in 30–45 minutes. More about who built it →

Who CISO Simulator is for

Aspiring CISOs and CISO-track security leaders. Students studying for CISSP, CCISO, or CISM certification. Cybersecurity professionals who want a thoughtful simulator about strategy trade-offs. Gamification fans interested in a turn-based simulation rooted in real risk-and-control mechanics.

Why it's vendor-neutral

The catalog uses category descriptors — Mid-Tier EDR, Enterprise SIEM, Continuous Control Monitoring, TPRM Platform, Customer Trust Center, AI Prompt-DLP — instead of vendor names. The mechanics reflect how each category of tool actually works, so what you learn translates to real procurement decisions.

Security Education — built-in certification roadmap

Inside the simulator you'll find the full Cybersecurity Certification Roadmap — 70+ professional certifications across 14 career tracks (Foundational, Offensive, Defensive, Cloud, AI Security, Management, Forensics, Compliance, DevSecOps, Quantum, Architecture, more). Each certification entry shows cost, study time, salary range, demand level, validity, target audience, and career paths. A built-in 7-question quiz scores your fit across the catalog and surfaces your top-5 cert matches with reasons. Use it to plan your real CISSP / CISM / OSCP / CCSP / CCISO path while you play.

No install, no signup needed

Plays in any modern browser, mobile or desktop. You can start a run immediately as a guest and sign up later to save it across devices. No install, no setup.

The interactive game loads in your browser. No install, no signup. See all guides →