phishing simulation

Security awareness exercises that actually work share one thing: they create practice, not just knowledge.

The gap between knowing phishing exists and recognizing it in your inbox under deadline pressure is enormous. That gap is where breaches happen. Effective exercises bridge it through realistic practice in safe environments.

Passive training (videos, slideshows, policy documents) creates knowledge without skill. Employees can define phishing but still click malicious links because recognition under pressure requires practiced reflexes, not memorized definitions.

The research is clear: people learn by doing. Security awareness exercises that engage employees in realistic decision-making create lasting behavioral change that passive content cannot match.

The most impactful single exercise type. Send realistic phishing emails, track who clicks, and provide immediate education.

What makes simulations effective:

• Realistic scenarios matching actual threats
• Immediate feedback at the moment of failure
• Progressive difficulty as employees improve
• Focus on reporting, not just avoiding clicks

Common mistakes:

• Templates too obviously fake
• Punishing failures instead of teaching
• Running simulations annually instead of continuously
• Ignoring reporting metrics

Phone-based (vishing) and in-person exercises test whether employees verify identities before sharing information or granting access.

Example scenarios:

• Caller claims to be IT support and requests password reset
• Visitor without badge asks to be let into secure area
• Email appears to be from executive requesting urgent wire transfer

These exercises reveal whether verification procedures are followed under social pressure.

Discussion-based scenarios walk teams through incident response without technical testing. Particularly valuable for:

• Ransomware response: Decision-making about payment, communication, recovery priorities
• Data breach disclosure: Regulatory notification, customer communication, legal coordination
• Executive compromise: Responding when leadership accounts are hijacked

Tabletops expose gaps in procedures and communication before real incidents reveal them painfully.

Hands-on practice with security tools:

• Setting up multi-factor authentication
• Using password managers correctly
• Recognizing suspicious URLs before clicking
• Encrypting sensitive communications

These exercises build practical capabilities, not just awareness.

Before training, measure current vulnerability. Run unannounced phishing simulations across the organization to establish:

• Current click-through rate
• Reporting rate (employees who flag suspicious emails)
• Time between receiving and reporting
• Department-level variation

This baseline enables demonstrating improvement and identifying highest-risk groups.

Different roles face different threats. Generic training wastes time on irrelevant scenarios.

Finance teams need:

• Business email compromise recognition
• Wire transfer verification procedures
• Invoice fraud identification

Executives need:

• Whaling attack recognition
• Authority exploitation awareness
• Incident communication protocols

IT staff need:

• Social engineering defense
• Secure system administration practices
• Incident response procedures

Security awareness isn’t an event. It’s a process.

Continuous reinforcement maintains awareness without creating fatigue.

Employees who fear punishment for failing exercises will:

• Hide mistakes instead of reporting them
• Resent security training
• Game the system rather than learn

Create environments where:

• Failures lead to education, not punishment
• Reporting suspicious activity is celebrated
• Questions are welcomed, not judged
• Learning is the explicit goal

• Security incident volume trends
• Employee sentiment toward security
• Compliance audit findings
• Near-miss reports from employees

Single measurements are less valuable than trends. A 15% click rate improving to 8% over six months demonstrates program effectiveness better than any single data point.

Exercises designed to catch people create resentment. Employees who feel tricked become resistant to the entire program and less likely to report future mistakes.

Instead: Frame exercises as practice opportunities. Celebrate improvement. Treat failures as learning moments.

Training about “hackers” and “cybercriminals” feels abstract. Scenarios involving your actual systems, vendors, and processes feel relevant.

Instead: Customize scenarios to reflect real threats facing your organization and industry.

Awareness decays rapidly. Annual training creates a brief spike of vigilance followed by 11 months of decline.

Instead: Maintain continuous, varied touchpoints throughout the year.

When executives exempt themselves from training, they signal that security isn’t actually important, and they remain the highest-value targets.

Instead: Ensure visible executive participation and support.

100% training completion means nothing if click rates don’t improve and reporting doesn’t increase.

Instead: Measure behavioral outcomes, not administrative checkboxes.

A 500-employee manufacturing company implemented a comprehensive exercise program after experiencing two successful phishing attacks in six months.

Baseline state:

• 32% phishing simulation click rate
• 4% suspicious email reporting rate
• Annual compliance video training

Program implemented:

• Monthly phishing simulations with immediate feedback
• Quarterly department-specific scenarios
• Security champion program with peer education
• Recognition for threat reporters

Results after 12 months:

• 6% phishing simulation click rate (81% improvement)
• 68% suspicious email reporting rate (17x increase)
• Zero successful phishing attacks
• Employee security satisfaction: 4.2/5 (up from 2.1/5)

The transformation came from practice, not policy. Employees who regularly encountered simulated threats developed reflexes that protected them against real ones.

• Run baseline phishing simulation
• Survey employees about security awareness
• Identify high-risk roles and departments

• Select exercise platforms and content
• Develop role-specific training paths
• Create communication plan
• Establish metrics and goals

• Roll out initial exercises to pilot group
• Gather feedback and adjust
• Expand organization-wide

• Monitor metrics monthly
• Update scenarios based on current threats
• Recognize and reward security-conscious behavior
• Continuously improve based on data

Security awareness exercises work because they create practice, not just knowledge. The organizations that dramatically reduce their phishing click rates and increase their incident reporting aren’t running better lectures. They’re running better exercises.

Start with baseline measurement. Design role-appropriate scenarios. Create psychological safety for learning. Measure outcomes, not completion. Iterate continuously.

Your employees encounter potential threats daily. Give them the practice they need to respond appropriately.

Experience the difference between passive content and interactive practice. Try our free security awareness exercises and see how simulation-based training builds real defensive skills.

Every organization trains employees to recognize phishing. Most still get breached anyway.

The problem isn’t awareness. It’s application. Employees who ace multiple-choice quizzes about phishing indicators still click malicious links when those links arrive in their actual inbox. The gap between knowing and doing is where breaches happen.

Phishing simulation training closes that gap by creating controlled practice opportunities. Instead of telling employees what phishing looks like, simulations show them and measure whether training translates to behavior.

Traditional security awareness relies on passive content: videos, slideshows, written policies. Employees complete modules, pass assessments, and promptly forget everything.

This fails for predictable reasons:

Context disconnect: Learning about phishing in a training environment doesn’t trigger the same cognitive patterns as encountering it in a busy workday.

No consequences: Quiz answers have no stakes. Real phishing emails carry consequences, but the training doesn’t simulate that pressure.

One-time events: Annual training creates a spike of awareness that fades within weeks.

Overconfidence: Completing training convinces people they’re protected, reducing vigilance.

Organizations that rely solely on passive training typically see:

• 25-35% click rates on phishing simulations
• Low suspicious email reporting rates
• No measurable improvement year over year

Simulated phishing campaigns send realistic-but-safe phishing emails to employees. When someone clicks the malicious link, they receive immediate feedback explaining what they missed. When someone reports the email correctly, they receive positive reinforcement.

1. Design

Create realistic phishing emails tailored to your organization:

• Match current threat intelligence (what’s actually targeting your industry)
• Use contextually appropriate pretexts (vendor invoices, IT notifications, HR communications)
• Include realistic-looking spoofed sender addresses and domains
• Craft landing pages that mimic legitimate sites

2. Deploy

Send simulations to target groups:

• Stagger delivery to avoid pattern detection
• Vary send times to match actual attack patterns
• Use different difficulty levels for different audiences
• Track delivery, opens, clicks, and credentials entered

3. Educate

Provide immediate feedback when employees interact with simulations:

• Clicking reveals what indicators they missed
• Education is delivered in the moment, maximizing retention
• No public shaming (feedback is private and constructive)
• Correct reporters receive recognition

4. Measure

Track metrics over time:

• Click-through rates by department, role, and individual
• Report rates (employees who flagged the simulation)
• Time to report suspicious emails
• Improvement trends across simulation campaigns

5. Iterate

Use data to refine the program:

• Identify struggling individuals or departments for additional training
• Adjust difficulty based on organizational maturity
• Update tactics to match evolving threats
• Recognize and celebrate improvement

Before launching training, measure current vulnerability. Send a realistic phishing simulation without warning to establish baseline click rates.

This matters because:

• You can’t demonstrate improvement without a starting point
• Baseline data reveals highest-risk groups
• Initial results justify investment in training
• Prevents overconfidence in existing awareness

Ineffective simulations are too obvious or too artificial. Effective simulations mirror real attacks:

Good simulation characteristics:

• Plausible sender (vendor, service provider, internal department)
• Contextually appropriate content (matches employee’s role)
• Urgency without absurdity (deadline, not apocalypse)
• Professional appearance (proper formatting, no obvious errors)
• Realistic landing pages (not immediately identifiable as fake)

Common mistakes:

• Templates that look like training exercises
• Obvious grammatical errors that real attackers wouldn’t make
• Unrealistic offers (free iPads, lottery winnings)
• Using the same template repeatedly
• Making simulations too difficult too soon

Match simulation difficulty to organizational maturity:

Progress through levels as click rates improve. Moving too fast creates frustration; staying too easy creates complacency.

Annual simulations don’t work. Monthly or bi-weekly campaigns maintain awareness and provide continuous measurement:

Recommended cadence:

• Monthly simulations for general population
• Bi-weekly for high-risk roles (finance, executives, IT)
• Additional targeted simulations following detected real attacks
• Varied timing to prevent predictability

Not clicking is good. Reporting is better.

An employee who doesn’t click but also doesn’t report has protected only themselves. An employee who reports alerts security teams and potentially protects the entire organization.

Track and celebrate:

• Suspicious email report rates
• Time between simulation delivery and reports
• Quality of report content (did they explain what looked suspicious?)

How you respond to employees who fail simulations determines program success.

Do:

• Provide immediate, private education
• Explain what indicators were missed
• Offer additional training resources
• Track patterns without public shaming
• Celebrate improvement over time

Don’t:

• Publicly embarrass individuals or departments
• Use simulation results punitively
• Create fear of reporting future mistakes
• Compare individuals in ways that demotivate
• Make simulations feel like gotcha exercises

Phishing simulation training requires investment. Demonstrating return justifies continued funding.

Calculate avoided costs:

• Average cost per successful phishing attack: $136 per record compromised
• Average breach cost: $4.88 million
• Reduced incident response burden (staff time, external support)
• Insurance premium reductions (some policies credit security training)

Demonstrate decreased organizational risk:

• Reduced successful phishing incidents
• Earlier detection of real attacks
• Improved security culture indicators
• Better audit and compliance posture

Simulations aren’t entrapment. They’re practice. Athletes practice against simulated game conditions. Pilots train in simulators. Security awareness training works the same way.

Morale suffers when employees discover they fell for real attacks that could have been prevented with practice. It doesn’t suffer from educational exercises with constructive feedback.

The time investment for simulations is minimal. The time cost of actual breaches is enormous.

A phishing simulation program requires:

• Initial setup: 8-16 hours
• Monthly maintenance: 2-4 hours
• Results review: 1-2 hours monthly

Compare to average breach response: weeks to months of intensive effort.

Technical controls reduce risk but can’t eliminate phishing. Even with perfect email security:

• Personal devices access work systems
• Out-of-band phishing (SMS, social media) bypasses email controls
• Sophisticated attacks evade detection
• Business email compromise targets human judgment

Security is everyone’s responsibility because everyone is targeted.

Intelligence doesn’t prevent phishing susceptibility. Social engineering exploits psychological shortcuts that affect everyone:

• Rushed decisions under time pressure
• Deference to apparent authority
• Desire to be helpful
• Pattern matching (this looks like legitimate emails I receive)

Even security professionals fall for well-crafted attacks. Practice creates vigilance that intelligence alone cannot.

Effective phishing simulation requires:

Essential:

• Customizable email templates
• Spoofed sender address support
• Landing page creation and hosting
• Click and credential tracking
• Automated reporting and analytics
• Integration with email systems

Valuable:

• Pre-built template libraries
• Threat intelligence integration
• SCORM export for LMS integration
• Automated training assignment based on results
• API access for security dashboard integration

Ensure simulation platforms work with your environment:

Email delivery:

• Whitelist simulation sender domains
• Configure to bypass spam filtering
• Test delivery across email clients

Tracking accuracy:

• Account for email proxies that pre-fetch URLs
• Handle link protection services that scan emails
• Verify click attribution is accurate

Reporting workflow:

• Enable one-click reporting button
• Route reports to simulation platform for classification
• Provide feedback on correctly reported simulations

1. Baseline first: Measure before training to demonstrate improvement
2. Be realistic: Simulations should mirror actual threats
3. Progress gradually: Match difficulty to organizational maturity
4. Simulate frequently: Monthly minimum, bi-weekly for high-risk roles
5. Prioritize reporting: Celebrate reports, not just non-clicks
6. Educate immediately: Feedback at the moment of failure
7. Never punish: Learning environments require psychological safety
8. Measure everything: Track metrics over time to demonstrate value
9. Iterate continuously: Update based on results and threat landscape
10. Integrate broadly: Connect simulations to overall security awareness

Phishing simulation training bridges the gap between knowing and doing. By providing realistic practice opportunities with immediate feedback, organizations transform theoretical awareness into practical vigilance.

The investment is modest: platform costs, configuration time, and ongoing management effort. The return is reduced click rates, improved reporting, decreased breach risk, and a security culture where employees actively participate in defense.

Every organization faces phishing attacks. Organizations that practice defending against simulated attacks perform dramatically better against real ones.

Experience realistic phishing simulations firsthand. Try our free interactive security exercises and see how simulation-based training differs from passive content.