Phishing Simulation and Testing Solutions: Everything You Need To Know (FAQs)
What Is Phishing?
Phishing is a type of cyberattack where malicious actors attempt to lure individuals into
- Clicking on a malicious link
- Downloading a malicious file
- Share sensitive information, like financial data or credentials
Traditionally, phishing attacks were sent by email and used a “scatter gun” approach; they would spam hundreds and thousands of accounts with the same attack, in the hope the one or two of the accounts would fall for it.
Today, phishing is more sophisticated; the malicious actor researches their victim and tried to manipulate them into thinking the message is from a trusted sender, so they’re more likely to interact with it. Plus, while email is still the most common medium for exploitation, bad actors today also use SMS, phone calls, and social media to carry out phishing attacks.
What Are The Different Types Of Phishing?
Aside from email phishing, here are some other common types of phishing attack to be aware of:
- Vishing: Voice phishing, or “vishing”, attacks are sent via phone calls or voice notes
- SMiShing: SMiShing attacks are sent via SMS
- Spear phishing: Spear phishing attacks identify a specific individual, rather than hundreds of accounts at once. They often impersonate real employees, and use spoofed domains and other fraudulent material to make the attack more realistic
- Whaling: Whaling is a type of spear phishing used to single out a senior individual within an organization, such as a CEO or board member. These attacks are highly specific and directed, and often involve impersonation
- Pharming: Pharming attacks redirect employees to fake websites, where they’re tricked into typing in sensitive information that is then sent directly to the malicious actor
How Does Phishing Simulation And Phishing Testing Work?
Often delivered as part of a wider SAT platform, phishing simulation platform is deployed to simulate real world attacks, to better understand if employees respond correctly. Once the email is sent, the employee can assess if it is risky and decide if they want to interact with it, or ignore it. There are two main benefits to this:
- Employees can put their SAT to practice and identify risks in a secure, real-world way
- IT admins can identify their most vulnerable employees based on their responses to phishing tests, and assign further education or step-up enforcement where needed
How Can You Get The Most From Your Phishing Simulation Solution?
Follow these recommendations to make sure your employees get the most out of your phishing simulation tool:
- Don’t use simulation in isolation. Most phishing simulation tools are designed to be used alongside a SAT platform, which educates your employees on how to identify and react to phishing attacks. If you deploy phishing simulations without giving your employees any education, you can still monitor their behavior, but you won’t be teaching them how to improve.
- Customize campaigns to your employees. Different employees within your organization may face different types of attack depending on their role, department, and seniority. Customize your campaigns so that they present each employee with attacks that they’re likely to experience in real life.
- Update your templates. To make the emails as accurate and effective as possible, you should ensure that the phishing tests are based on current, realistic attacks. Some platforms use threat intelligence feeds to create realistic emails for your automatically.
What Are The Benefits Of Phishing Simulation And Testing?
There are a few reasons why you might want to implement a phishing simulation tool:
- Prevent data leaks: Simulated phishing emails teach your employees how to spot a phishing attack so that they won’t fall victim to a real one. Phishing simulations can also enable admins to identify any individuals or employee groups that are more susceptible to attacks, so that you can assign further modules to them.
- Monitor your attack rate: Phishing simulation platforms collect data on the success rate of each campaign, such as how many employees opened the email, how many employees clicked on a link to a “compromised” website or downloaded an attachment, and how many employees flagged the email. You can use this data to monitor your employees’ learning and your organization’s resilience to phishing over time.
- Motivate your people: Testing employees at the end of their SAT program can also motivate them to really engage with the program so that they do well in the phishing test. Some platforms take this a step further by turning campaigns into a competition and displaying the results on a leader board.
- Cultivate a culture of skepticism: Continuous SAT and phishing testing ensures that cybersecurity is always at the forefront of your employees’ minds. Helping employees not only to become aware of the topic but also to actively engage with it will help to foster a culture of skepticism across your entire workforce.
- Ensure compliance: Many regulatory frameworks, including GDPR and PCI, require organizations to undertake SAT in order to become compliant. Testing is recommended as a part of this education in order to track progress and improvement over time.
- Minimize insurance premiums: SAT can reassure a cybersecurity insurer that you are taking proactive steps to reduce your human risk levels, which in turn can help reduce your insurance premium.
The Best Phishing Simulation And Testing Platforms For Business: Shortlist FAQs
This article was written by Alex Zawalynski, the Content Manager at Expert Insights, who works along software experts to research, write, fact-check, and edit articles relating to B2B cybersecurity and technology platforms.
This list has been edited and reviewed by Expert Insights’ CEO and Founder, Craig McAlpine. Craig has over 25 years’ experience in the cybersecurity industry. In 2003, he founded EPA Cloud, an email security company which was acquired in 2013 by Global (now Ziff Davies Inc).
Craig is an experienced endpoint security practitioner who has worked in cybersecurity management, in an MSP environment, as an email security supplier, and as a vendor in the course of his career.
- Conducting first-hand technical reviews and testing of several dozen leading SAT providers
- Interviewing executives in the phishing simulation space, as well as the wider SAT and email security industries, for first-hand insight into the challenges and strengths of different solutions
- Researching and demoing phishing training platforms over several years
- Speaking to several organizations of all sizes about their phishing simulation challenges and the features that are most useful to them
Studies have found that 82% of data breaches include a human element, including phishing and the use of stolen credentials, and one in five companies that suffer a malicious data breach is compromised via lost or stolen credentials.
Plus, organizations of all sizes and across all industries are targeted by phishing attacks.
This list has therefore been written with a broad audience in mind.
When considering phishing simulation solutions, we evaluated providers based on the following criterion:
- Customizable phishing simulations: IT teams should be able to send customized, targeted email phishing simulations to individual users or user groups. This will lead to an increased security awareness.
- Phishing templates: The solution should offer a library of phishing email templates that admins can sue to create phishing campaigns. These should cover a broad range of attack scenarios and be available in multiple languages. The provider should update this library frequently.
- A ‘report phishing’ button: Users should be able to report simulated phishing emails from directly within their inbox. While some tools also allow users to report genuine phishing threats, this feature wasn’t a requirement for inclusion on this list.
- Admin reporting tools: Admins should be able to view reports into the success of each campaign, including any emails that failed to send, which users have opened simulations, and how users have responded to them.
Note that many products on this Shortlist offer additional features, such as a training content library or some form of interactivity or competition (e.g., a leaderboard or award system). While those are excellent features to offer, they weren’t required for inclusion on this Shortlist, which focuses specifically on phishing simulation and testing. Alongside the capabilities already mentioned, key features include an easy to use interface, the option of additional training, and information on the latest scams and risk types that can be triggered with a single click.
Finally, we have looked at where a product has come from in the market, including when companies were founded, their leadership team, their mission statements, and their successes. We have also considered product updates and how regularly new features and training content are added. We have ensured all vendors are credible leaders with a solution we would be happy to use ourselves.
Based on our experience in the SAT and broader email security markets, we have also considered several other factors, such as the benefit of consolidating phishing simulations and phishing testing into a single platform, the quality of the admin interface, the customer support on offer, and other use cases.
This list is designed to be a selection of the best phishing simulation and testing providers. Many leading solutions have not been included in this list, with no criticism intended.
