Why So Many Employee Phishing Training Initiatives Fall Short

During the work-from-home boom of 2020, GitLab, a company that largely employs tech-savvy individuals, decided to test its security by sending fake phishing messages to its WFH workers. About one out of every five tested employees fell for it, and only 12% reported the emails to GitLab security, signaling that human emotion often overrides technical expertise when it comes to social engineering attacks.

As the risk of phishing has only grown as a significant issue, many organizations started rolling out employee phishing training programs to help staff recognize and avoid attempted breaches.
However, phishing attacks have not slowed down as a result. In fact, they are still the number one cause of data breaches.

Let’s examine why so many phishing training programs fail to achieve their intended results and what organizations can do to improve them.

The Growing Threat of Phishing Attacks

Phishing has been the leading cause of breaches for years, and its impact continues to grow. Recently, scammers have increasingly targeted corporate accounts, investing significantly in developing sophisticated attacks that have cost businesses billions annually.

The rise of Generative AI and deepfake technology is making phishing more dangerous. Cybercriminals are no longer sending poorly written scam emails en masse. New technology is allowing them to get extremely creative with their campaigns, significantly boosting phishing success rates.

The financial strain is only part of the problem. Cyber criminals can use phishing to gain long-lasting access to critical systems, allowing them to deploy ransomware, extract sensitive data or even disrupt entire supply chains.

Why Traditional Phishing Training Often Fails

The need for effective phishing education for employees has never been greater. The problem is that many organizations still operate with outdated, one-size-fits-all training programs which may have worked up to a few years ago, but are now completely obsolete.

The traditional way of doing phishing training, which is still the most popular, is through annual or quarterly security awareness presentations. The sessions are usually conducted in a webinar or in-person speech with the expectation that all employees will absorb information rather than learn through experience. It’s unfortunately rare that this approach leads to positive behavior changes, especially if there is no follow-up or reinforcement after the training session is complete.

Without measuring progress and making sure employees are actively engaged with the training program, you are just hoping that the information will somehow stick and employees will instinctively recognize phishing attempts. But hope is not an effective security strategy. Ultimately, the return on investment (ROI) of the program will be minimal, if not negative.

The Components of Effective Phishing Training

While many phishing training initiatives fall short, building an effective training program is a worthy investment. The risk of phishing is there, but so are the methods to mitigate it. Organizations just need to commit to a smarter, more adaptive approach.

Here are some of the hallmarks of a modern and effective phishing prevention program.

First, the training must be personalized. Cybercriminals no longer send out the same messages regardless of the recipient. They tailor it to fit the specific organization, department, or even individual they are targeting. Modern training should be role-specific and risk-based, ensuring that employees face simulations that reflect the threats they’re most likely to encounter.

The training must steer more towards realistic simulation, rather than basic, outdated phishing examples that younger generations can spot easily anyway. Gamification can play a role here by making the training more engaging, interactive, and rewarding.

Training sessions should be conducted regularly, exposing the workforce to various phishing tactics throughout the year rather than relying on a single annual session. This approach ensures that as cybercriminals tweak and optimize their tactics over time, employees remain in the loop and are able to respond.

Finally, analytics must play a key part in the overall program, as they’re the only way to gauge whether the training is paying off or adjustments need to be made.

The Business Case for Strong Phishing Training

There has never been a better time for organizations to adopt phishing training as a key component of their cybersecurity strategy. Phishing training directly addresses one of the main risks to business security: the human factor.

By exposing the workforce to realistic attack scenarios, organizations can expect to minimize potential losses from data breaches, all without breaking the bank for high-quality training. At current rates, this type of phishing training is highly affordable, and even smaller companies can implement it without straining their budget, especially when compared to the astronomical costs and reputational damage associated with a breach.

If done correctly, the training can have a tremendous impact on phishing reporting rates, and improve the overall security awareness of the organization.

In an environment of increasingly stringent compliance requirements, phishing training will also help companies in heavily regulated industries to meet security awareness mandates set by regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOX.

Conclusion

Phishing seems to be here to stay, and the response from the business community leaves a lot to be desired. We are still seeing outdated approaches to phishing training, which must change if we want to see meaningful reductions in phishing-related breaches.

Now is the perfect time for organizations to shift to a more proactive and adaptive approach to phishing prevention, one that prioritizes continuous learning through real-world simulations and engagement-driven education.