Phishing awareness
Help employees identify suspicious messages, links, attachments, and requests.
Security Awareness Training
Security Awareness Training That Employees Can Put Into Practice
Security awareness training should help employees recognize threats they may encounter in everyday work.
Phishmake combines cybersecurity awareness training with phishing simulations, employee tracking, and reporting so teams can move from delivering training to measuring how employees respond.
Practical learning • Controlled simulations • Progress tracking • Reporting
01Practical Learning
Turn Security Awareness Into Practical Employee Learning
Awareness training is most useful when employees can connect concepts to realistic situations. Phishmake supports a repeatable cycle of training, simulation, measurement, and reinforcement.
- 01Training
- 02Simulation
- 03Measurement
- 04Reinforcement
02Training Content
Security Awareness Training Topics
Phishmake delivers structured training through an employee portal. Available courses can vary by account, so administrators can review the active course catalog before assigning learning.
Credential protection
Reinforce careful handling of passwords, sign-in pages, and authentication prompts.
Social engineering
Build awareness of impersonation and manipulation in workplace communication.
Email security
Connect everyday inbox decisions with practical security habits.
03Buyer Checklist
Evaluate Training Software From the Employee's First Assignment
Training is the learning itself; training software handles delivery and records. A broader awareness platform can connect those records to simulations and other activities. Check which parts your team needs instead of treating every course library or platform as interchangeable.
| Requirement | What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Relevant learning | Review actual lessons for the risks, roles, and workplace decisions in your program. | A large catalog is useful only when employees can apply the material to their work. |
| Employee access | Open an assignment on the devices employees use and review language and accessibility needs. | People need a usable route into learning before participation data becomes meaningful. |
| Assignment workflow | Ask an administrator to assign learning, find incomplete assignments, and inspect an employee's history. | Routine follow-up should fit the time and staffing available to operate the program. |
| Practical reinforcement | Show how a relevant exercise leads to a training assignment and a subsequent review. | Learning and practice need to connect to the same objective rather than operate as separate events. |
| Reporting evidence | Inspect assignment, progress, completion, and campaign records using a sample management question. | A completion total answers a different question from how employees respond in practice. |
| Program fit | Confirm course availability, integrations, data handling, support, and any required plan features. | The chosen package must fit both the learning plan and the organization that will maintain it. |
04Program Evaluation
Test One Learning Objective Before Expanding the Program
Start with a specific decision, such as verifying an unexpected shared-document request. NIST's learning-program guidance emphasizes behavior change, role-based learning, and evaluation across the program lifecycle. Use the pilot to connect your chosen behavior with practical evidence.
- 1
Map the learning need
Name the audience, expected action, and business context. Review an available lesson against that objective and identify any organization-specific guidance employees also need.
- 2
Try both experiences
Have an administrator assign the course and representative employees complete it. Record access problems, unclear instructions, and the time the task takes.
- 3
Review participation and practice
Inspect progress and completion in Phishmake. Where appropriate, pair the lesson with an approved simulation and review the resulting activity in context.
- 4
Decide what to change
Use employee feedback and the pilot findings to adjust content, communication, or follow-up. Give each change an owner and a review point before expanding the audience.
Source: NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1
05Learning Loop
Combine Training With Phishing Simulations
- 01Educate
- 02Simulate
- 03Measure
- 04Identify gaps
- 05Reinforce
- 06Track progress
06Tracking
Track Employee Training Activity
Review assignments, employee-level status, course progress, start and completion dates, and training connected to a campaign. This keeps training history and phishing activity easier to understand.
07Regulated Teams
Security Awareness Training for Regulated Organizations
Banks
Connect employee learning, phishing tests, and organized records.
Credit unions
Manage a repeatable awareness workflow.
GLBA programs
Support people-focused elements of a broader safeguards program.
FFIEC guidance
Organize training and simulation evidence in a risk-based program.
08Reporting
Make Reporting Easier for Security and Compliance Teams
Centralized simulation events, assignments, and completion records reduce the need to reconcile separate systems. These records can support internal reviews without guaranteeing a compliance outcome.
Common questions
What is security awareness training?
It is employee education designed to help people recognize security risks and make safer decisions during everyday work.
What should security awareness training include?
Content should reflect the organization's risk assessment, employee roles, policies, and threat environment. Common areas include phishing, credential protection, social engineering, and information handling.
How often should employees receive training?
Choose a risk-based schedule and reinforce learning when risks, roles, or circumstances change. Applicable policies or obligations may also affect timing.
What is phishing awareness training?
It teaches employees how to recognize and respond to suspicious messages, links, attachments, and requests for sensitive information.
What is the difference between training and simulation?
Training explains concepts and expected behavior. A simulation provides a controlled opportunity to apply that knowledge and produces measurable activity data.
How can organizations measure awareness training?
Useful evidence can include assignments, progress, completion, simulation events, and trends across repeated campaigns.
Can training and simulation results support compliance reporting?
They can provide evidence that awareness activities occurred and were monitored. Those records do not, by themselves, establish compliance or guarantee that an auditor or examiner will consider the evidence sufficient.
Sources & further reading
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Build a More Measurable Security Awareness Program
Give employees practical cybersecurity education and use phishing simulations to understand how learning translates into behavior.