How Do Phishing Simulations Enhance Employees’ Cybersecurity Awareness?
In the digital age, understanding the nuances of cybersecurity is crucial for employees across all sectors. We’ve gathered insights from Cybersecurity Consultants and Growth Strategists, and many other professionals, to shed light on this topic. Explore 6 key benefits of phishing simulations in bolstering cybersecurity awareness.
- Learning from Phishing Simulations
- Hands-On Experience with Controlled Scenarios
- Making Cyber Threats Tangible
- Gauging Employee Awareness Through Simulations
- Realism in Phishing Simulations Prevents Breaches
- Enhancing Awareness with Personalized Simulations
Learning from Phishing Simulations
It’s not so much about the actual simulation, but what happens afterwards. If someone is tricked, they now have a learning opportunity to improve their suspicion and knowledge.
But of course, this has to be done right. There’s no point in giving them boring training where they’ll multitask and not concentrate. Consider live classes where they are shown rules and examples for staying safe, and they can ask questions.
It’s crucial to remember that this must not be seen as a punishment. The process should be encouraging, nurturing, and relate learnings to home use so they can feel a sense of personal benefit.
Mike Ouwerkerk
Fun, Engaging Cyber Security Awareness Trainer & Cultural Transformation Consultant, Web Safe Staff
Hands-On Experience with Controlled Scenarios
Phishing simulations, along with general cybersecurity training, offer numerous benefits to employees. Firstly, they provide hands-on experience in a controlled environment. By simulating real-world phishing scenarios, employees can learn to identify suspicious emails, links, or attachments, and understand the potential consequences of falling for phishing attacks.
Furthermore, it allows employees to develop a sense of awareness regarding these attacks and trains them to respond accordingly, making better-informed decisions when encountering suspicious communications, thereby reducing the likelihood of falling victim to phishing attacks in the workplace.
From my personal experience with monthly cybersecurity trainings at Codific, I can attest that my awareness of both phishing attacks and cybersecurity risks has undergone significant improvement.
Michaella Masters
Marketing Coordinator, Videolab
Making Cyber Threats Tangible
Anytime you can show a client or employee specific consequences, that’s a great learning opportunity and something that’s going to sell them on the importance of security. So a phishing simulation makes the impact real and immediate. It’s no longer just a vague, theoretical threat; it’s something they can see and feel for themselves, and understand what’s at stake here. This way, they will be more careful about not clicking mystery links in emails, opening spam, and generally treating online security seriously.
Sead Fadilpašić
Cybersecurity Consultant and Writer, Restore Privacy
Gauging Employee Awareness Through Simulations
Phishing simulations are a valuable way of gauging employee awareness. The response to a seemingly real phishing attempt can give your organization a better idea of where it’s falling short.
No matter how good your cyber defenses are, some phishing emails will slip through the net. That’s why it’s so crucial that your employees know how to deal with them. If they respond to a simulated phishing attack by clicking on a link or downloading an attachment, you know you still have some work to do on training and education.
It’s far better to find out that there’s a problem this way than to wait for the real thing when the outcome could be far worse.
Craig Bird
Managing Director, CloudTech24
Realism in Phishing Simulations Prevents Breaches
Phishing simulations are much more realistic. Our company ran into an issue just like this about five years ago. They were able to gain access to our internal cost/pricing data. After it happened, we sent out an email to all associates explaining the severity and what not to do. It happened again about six months later. A few weeks after the second incident, we had a company come out for training, and they showed us a phishing simulation—many, actually. It must have worked, because since then we haven’t had one issue!
Jeff Michael
Ecommerce Business Owner, Supplement Warehouse
Enhancing Awareness with Personalized Simulations
As cyber threats evolve to become more personalized and emotionally triggering, phishing simulations play a critical role in enhancing employees’ cybersecurity awareness. These simulations provide a controlled environment for individuals to experience and recognize the tactics used by malicious actors. One significant benefit is their ability to simulate real-world scenarios, exemplified by an incident I encountered upon joining Jeskell as CMO. In this instance, a personalized phishing attempt, disguised as communication from company leadership, underscored the importance of cultivating a healthy skepticism towards digital communications. By exposing employees to such scenarios in a safe environment, phishing simulations empower them to develop the necessary skills to identify and respond appropriately to malicious attempts, thereby bolstering the organization’s security posture.
Kelly Nuckolls
CMO, Jeskell Systems
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