From deepfakes to crisis drills: Inside Hack to the Future
Forget death by PowerPoint. At Hack to the Future, IT and cyber security leaders stepped into a live, hands-on environment where real-world threats and interactive drills tested instincts under pressure, no coding required.
Why we created Hack to the Future
Senior IT professionals and decision-makers need more than theory, they need immersive experiences that challenge assumptions and sharpen responses. Hack to the Future wasn’t just an exercise; it was a dynamic simulation designed to push leaders beyond the expected, exploring how they’d act under pressure if a breach occurred. It created a space for collaboration, resilience, and strategic insight, stretching thinking and strengthening decision-making beyond “realistic” into truly transformative.
What made it different
No endless slides. No passive listening. Instead, sessions were led by Claranet’s senior product and technical experts, people who live and breathe these challenges every day. We combined real-world expertise with interactive drills designed to stretch thinking and uncover blind spots:
- Breakout discussions and collaborative decisions
- Scenario progression with “what would you do next?” moments
- Drills on crisis communication, deepfake detection, and quick thinking under pressure
Key insights
Participants left with actionable lessons that matter:
- How fast breach scenarios escalate and why speed matters
- Why joined up thinking across cyber, cloud, data, AI, workplace, networks and people is critical
- The value of rehearsing crisis decisions before they count
- How to spot blind spots in processes, communication, and governance
These weren’t abstract ideas. They were grounded in real-world scenarios and guided by experts who know what works and what fails, when the pressure is on.
The experience
Serious topics, but a collaborative, energising vibe. From team dynamics to prize giveaways, Hack to the Future proved that learning can be engaging and even fun. Complex topics became accessible, and the mix of interaction and insight kept everyone involved.
What our attendees had to say
I wanted to take a moment to say thank you, to you all, for the excellent “Hack to the Future” event that several of us, rather ironically, were attending at the same time as the Malware event. I think it is particularly impressive that your SOC were able to act so swiftly, despite several members of the SOC, including senior SOC Engineers being present at the “Hack to the Future” event. This shows me that you have good operational resilience and are still effective even with reduced numbers. I found the “Hack to the Future” event to be incredibly useful. It helped align our understanding of how the EDR SOC operate. It was also illuminating and fun and brilliantly delivered. Great fun, but also extremely useful. Thanks to you and the wider Team for all you do.
I just wanted to share how positive I felt after last week’s event. I genuinely left feeling like we’re in good hands with Claranet. It takes a lot to impress me because my expectations are pretty high, but what I saw and the work you’re doing, absolutely met them. I really appreciated the open dialogue throughout the day. It helped realign things on both sides, especially after some earlier miscommunication within my own team. The workshops were genuinely eye-opening and gave me new perspectives. The legal expert was excellent, and the deepfake security session really stood out, very impressive. Overall, I walked away with a really good positive vibe, excited about what’s ahead and confident about continuing our partnership.
Thank you so much for the event yesterday. Please can you pass on my thanks to everyone. I found the event incredibly useful, and the interactive nature was brilliant. I really enjoyed it, a different approach rather than keynote speakers which I think worked well.
Thanks so much for such a fun, informative and engaging afternoon. I was really impressed by the work you and the team put into planning and delivering the sessions. The two exercises on ransomware infiltration and GDPR breach/leak were especially informative, and highlighted a few non-intuitive strategies around evidence gathering, legal considerations and insurance that I hadn’t come across before. The AI deepfake demo was honestly quite scary, it’s definitely something I’d encourage our senior team to see for themselves. The hacking games were great fun too and gave a clear insight into just how devious bad actors can be.
What’s next
London and Leeds were just the beginning. More Claranet events are coming soon, stay tuned.