Build your first scenario

Go from a blank start to a dollar figure for a cyber risk in about five minutes.

DecipherRisk CRQ turns a cyber-risk concern — "what could a ransomware hit on our EHR cost us?" — into a range of dollar outcomes with probabilities attached. You describe the risk in a few estimates; the tool runs thousands of simulated years and shows you the spread. Here's the whole loop.

1. Start a scenario

From Scenarios, click New. You'll pick a starting template and, on your first scenario, a goal:

Just get a number — the leanest path. The editor stays minimal and you go straight to a result.
Build a model — opens the decomposition surfaces so you can break a risk into its parts.
Tune the math — reveals every advanced control for power users.

Pick whichever matches your intent — it only sets what's shown by default; nothing is locked, and you can reveal more at any time.

2. Fill in your estimates

A scenario is built from a small set of estimates. At the simplest, you give:

How often the loss event happens (its frequency — e.g. "about once every three years").
How much a single event costs (its magnitude — e.g. "somewhere between $200K and $2M, most likely $600K").

You don't enter single numbers — you enter ranges, because nobody knows the exact figure. Each estimate is a distribution you shape with a few intuitive inputs (a low, a most-likely, and a high, for the common PERT distribution). A live preview shows the shape as you type.

Not sure what a field means? Hover any underlined term for a plain-language definition, or see the FAIR glossary.

3. Run it

Click Run. The tool simulates thousands of possible years using your estimates and shows the results. There's no Save button — your work is saved automatically as you go.

4. Read the headline

The Results page opens on a headline figure and a loss exceedance curve — the core FAIR chart, showing the probability that your annual loss exceeds any given dollar amount. See the companion article, Reading your results.

That's the loop