Training
Stay Cyber-Savvy with Phishing Awareness Training.
Phishing awareness training is essential for educating employees about the dangers of phishing — a cyber threat involving deceptive emails and websites aiming to steal sensitive information.
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What is phishing awareness training?
Phishing awareness training is the practice of teaching employees to recognise, avoid, and report phishing — the deceptive emails, texts, calls, and websites attackers use to steal credentials and deliver malware. It matters because phishing remains the way most cyber attacks begin: attackers target people because manipulating one distracted employee is easier than defeating your security stack.
Effective phishing training has two halves. The first is education: short, engaging lessons on how phishing attacks work, what suspicious emails look like, and exactly how to report them. The second is practice: simulated phishing campaigns that safely test employees with realistic lures, so spotting an attack becomes a reflex rather than a memory from last year's slideshow. Combined, they turn your workforce from the softest target into an active layer of your security posture — and give the security team hard data on human risk.
The phishing attacks your training must cover in 2026
Attackers moved beyond mass email years ago. A modern phishing awareness programme trains employees against every channel a social engineering attack actually uses.
Email Phishing
The classic vector: deceptive emails that imitate trusted brands or colleagues to steal credentials or deliver malware. Training teaches employees to check senders, hover links, and treat urgency as a red flag.
Spear Phishing & BEC
Targeted attacks on specific people — often finance or executives — using researched, personalised pretexts. Business email compromise adds fraudulent payment requests with no malware at all, which is why awareness is the main defence.
Smishing (SMS)
Phishing attempts over text message: fake delivery notices, bank alerts, and MFA prompts. Employees learn to verify through official apps, never through links in unexpected texts.
Vishing (Voice)
Phone-based social engineering — an 'IT helpdesk' asking for a password reset, or an AI-cloned voice of an executive. Training builds the habit of calling back on a known number before acting.
Quishing (QR Codes)
Malicious QR codes in emails and public spaces that route to credential-harvesting pages, bypassing email link filters. A newer vector most employees have never been warned about.
Deepfake & AI Attacks
AI-generated voices and videos that impersonate leadership convincingly. Modern phishing awareness training includes deepfake scenarios because attackers already use them.
The 7 signs of a phishing email
These are the tells we train every employee to check before clicking. Two or more together? Report it.
- 1A sense of urgency or threat — 'act now', 'your account will be closed'
- 2A sender address that almost matches a real one (paypa1.com, micros0ft.com)
- 3Links whose real destination doesn't match the displayed text
- 4Unexpected attachments, especially invoices, voicemails, or 'shared documents'
- 5Requests for credentials, payment changes, or gift cards
- 6Generic greetings and slightly-off tone from a supposedly familiar sender
- 7Offers or consequences that are too good or too dire to be true
Our simple, fast, and effective process.
Define Purpose & Objectives
Define the purpose and objectives of the phishing awareness training programme and identify the target audience.
Plan Content & Delivery
Select the most appropriate delivery method, develop content, and test the phishing awareness training programme.
Execute & Assess
Implement the programme and evaluate its effectiveness. Iterate based on results to continuously improve.
"No matter what type of phishing awareness training you choose, it's important that you make sure your employees are getting the most out of it. Ensure that the training is interactive, engaging, and covers the most up-to-date information on phishing threats."
Here's How PhishGrid Helps You Prevent Phishing Attacks.
PhishGrid's phishing simulations and training programmes offer meticulously crafted phishing scenarios and comprehensive reporting capabilities, empowering your workforce to enhance their vigilance and security awareness.
Email Threat Simulator
PhishGrid's Email Threat Simulator (ETS) persistently assesses your email security, encompassing Office 365 and Google Workspace, with real-world attacks. It uncovers vulnerabilities and detects SEG-evading attacks, irrespective of perceived security strength.
Instant Phishing Training Feedback
Immediately communicate the repercussions of actions to employees and provide training tailored to their behaviour. This prompt feedback fosters increased vigilance against phishing in the future.
MFA Spoofing
In the event that an employee unintentionally discloses their MFA credentials, it can lead to significant challenges. PhishGrid stands out as the unmatched provider of MFA simulations in the industry.
Vishing Simulation
Having a customer support phone number necessitates vishing simulation. We provide 200+ AI-powered, multilingual vishing simulations to train employees in identifying and responding to such threats.
Incident Responder
Typically, it takes 9 hours to detect and mitigate a malicious email. PhishGrid's automated phishing incident response tool swiftly identifies and addresses email attacks within minutes, neutralising the threat across all inboxes.
Phishing awareness training best practices
The difference between a training program that changes behaviour and one that generates completion certificates.
Train continuously, not annually
Awareness decays in weeks. Short monthly touchpoints and simulated phishing keep detection skills sharp — a once-a-year module is a compliance checkbox, not a defence.
Pair training with phishing simulation
Simulated phishing turns theory into practised skill and gives you a real behavioural metric: who clicks, who reports, and how both trend over time.
Teach in the moment of failure
When someone clicks a simulated phishing email, immediate feedback in that exact moment is the most effective training window you will ever get.
Reward reporting, never shame clicking
The metric that predicts real resilience is the report rate. Employees who fear punishment hide mistakes; employees who are thanked for reporting become your fastest detection layer.
Personalise by role and risk
Finance faces BEC and payment fraud; executives face whaling; IT faces credential harvesting. Tailored phishing scenarios beat one-size-fits-all content.
Measure what matters
Track click rate down and report rate up campaign over campaign, watch repeat offenders, and roll results into a human risk score leadership can act on.
Frequently asked questions
What is phishing awareness training?
Phishing awareness training teaches employees to recognise, avoid, and report phishing attacks — deceptive emails, texts, calls, and websites designed to steal credentials or deliver malware. Effective programmes combine short training content with regular simulated phishing exercises, so employees practise spotting real-world attack techniques and the organisation gets measurable data on its human risk.
What are the 4 P's of phishing?
The 4 P's are Pretext (the believable story), Pressure (manufactured urgency), Payload (the malicious link, attachment, or credential form), and Personalisation (details that make the lure feel legitimate). Training employees to recognise this pattern works better than showing them individual fake emails, because the pattern survives even as attackers change tactics.
What are the 7 signs of a phishing email?
Urgency or threats; a sender address that almost matches a real one; links that don't match their displayed text; unexpected attachments; requests for credentials, payments, or gift cards; generic greetings or an off tone; and offers too good to be true. If two or more appear together, report the message rather than acting on it.
What are the four types of phishing?
The four most common types are email phishing (mass deceptive emails), spear phishing (targeted attacks on specific individuals, including business email compromise), smishing (SMS-based phishing), and vishing (voice-call phishing). Modern programmes also cover quishing (QR-code phishing) and deepfake-based impersonation, which attackers now use routinely.
Are phishing simulations effective?
Yes — when they're regular and paired with instant feedback. Organisations that run continuous simulated phishing with in-the-moment training typically cut click rates dramatically within a year, and more importantly raise their report rate, which is what catches real attacks early. One-off simulations without training change very little.
How often should employees receive phishing awareness training?
Monthly touchpoints work best: a short lesson or a simulated phishing email every few weeks, with targeted follow-up for employees who click repeatedly. This keeps awareness fresh without training fatigue, and produces trend data you can show auditors and leadership.
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