How Inspired eLearning Takes A Scientific Approach To Security Awareness Training

Inspired eLearning is one of the leading vendors in the Security Awareness Training market. They’re recognised across the market as being one of the top choices for large enterprises to go for with strong content and analytics for testing employees and training them to be better able to stop spam and phishing attacks.

We sat down with the CEO of Inspired eLearning Kyle Metcalf to talk about the Inspired eLearning platform, and to hear his insights about how they’re meeting the needs of customers of all sizes, with content based on a strong scientific and psychological foundation.

Inspired eLearning has historically focussed on creating highly customized training for large customers. But they are now making moves into creating a platform for businesses of all sizes to have high quality Security Awareness Training.

“We’ve taken everything that we’ve learnt from those enterprises that have a very strong security structure,” Metcalf says. “We’re going to continue to win in the enterprise space – but our new platform is providing engaging content that resonates with businesses of all sizes.”

“There’s nobody queuing up to take Security Awareness Training. So, what we’re trying to make it as painless, as frictionless as possible.”

Security First Solutions is a multilingual, packaged security awareness program. It delivers assessments, security awareness training, and phishing simulations through integrated learning paths.  Powered by automation capabilities, Inspired eLearning has built 15+ years of enterprise cyber security expertise into three new, off-the-shelf solutions to help businesses of any size.

Ease of use

Having an easy-to-use and frictionless platform for both people undergoing training and the IT departments running the training is a huge selling point for Security Awareness Training vendors. Is that what customers like best about the Inspired eLearning platform?

“Well, there’s two types of customer,” Kyle says. “Some customers are happiest when they have to do as little as possible and we do everything for them. They want everything automated and scheduled, which we do very well, so that’s what that type of customer likes best about us.”

“The Savvy buyer likes our content best. They like that it’s concise, high quality, enterprise level and has high production values. So, the savvy buyer will recognise that this platform is best suited to get their employees smarter about security issues.”

The importance of high quality training

One of the most important aspects of Security Awareness Training is the quality of the training materials themselves; effective content is engaging content

“Our production values are also head and shoulders above the competition,” Metcalf tells me. “My background wasn’t in cyber security, although I was consuming Inspired eLearning training in my last role.”

“The first thing I did when I took over was start to look at the competition, and as a learner, I could really see the difference in quality between their training and ours. Ours is higher production value, higher quality.”

“When you have higher production values like ours, you’re going to have more people paying attention and you’re going to get higher engagement.”

At the RSA show, Inspired eLearning showed off a new VR Security Awareness Training module.

“VR is something we’ve been talking about for a long time,” says Metcalf. “Immersive training like that has the highest retention rate of any training. We deliver VR training through our mobile app, so we’ve developed these clam shells that you put your smartphone into, and then people can get the full VR experience.”

“We put people into a virtual office, with some physical security threats, like someone walking around without a badge, passwords written on a post-it stuck to a computer. Then we do a quiz after about what was going wrong there. So, it’s an immersive experience, that people will remember! It also gets people excited about Security Awareness Training, in a way I haven’t seen before.”

“There’s a huge amount of intelligence that goes into how we develop our training. Our Chief Learning Officer, John Trest, and his team are the best in the business by a mile when it comes to the psychology and the science behind it.”

Phishing testing

One of the key aspects of Security Awareness Training is testing employees on how well they are able to spot simulated phishing emails. Inspired eLearning offers simulated phishing campaigns, but unlike a lot of vendors, they go beyond just email based phishing attacks.

“We offer Vishing, SMiShing and USB baiting,” Metcalf says. “Our simulations test people by calling up and pretending to be their bank, or sending them a text and seeing if they open that link on their work laptop, or by chucking a USB into the office and seeing if anyone plugs it in.”

“By doing this, PhishProof, our testing platform, can address all threat vectors.”

Flexible delivery

Training to help businesses improve their security in a flexible way.

“The training is all web based,” Metcalf tells me. “Our flexible delivery is important. You can consume our training through our Learning Management System (LMS), or you can you use your own. High – end customers expect customized training delivered through their system, but the benefit of our system is that we offer great analytics, an integrated learning path, and regular updates.”

“All of our training materials can be consumed on the web or on our mobile app. The app is great for customers who do a lot of business traveling or are working in remote locations without access to consistent internet for watching videos.”

Delivering a packaged security awareness and anti-phishing program, Security First Solutions, is a key way that Inspired eLearning is moving from being a highly specialized vendor for corporate customers, to becoming a mass market security awareness training vendor, with a library of engaging training materials. “My challenge is that we take what we’ve learnt from providing customised training and offer that to a company of any size.”

What sets Inspired eLearning apart?

Security awareness training is a crowded market. We asked Kyle how Inspired eLearning was doing things better than vendors like KnowBe4, who are dominating the market with aggressive sales and large amounts of funding.

“What sets us apart is the quality of the content, number one. Then, the services and support,” Metcalf tells me.

“We call ourselves the most effective training. Our Chief Learning Officer John Trest has forgotten more about adult learning theory and instructional design than most people have ever learnt!

“He’s got a very long background in building these courses, and our entire team has a tremendous amount of experience. This lets us design courses with the highest retention and highest engagement.”

If you’re looking for more information about the Inspired eLearning platform, you can find our full review here:

Inspired eLearning review