Phishing Simulation Campaigns: How to Test and Train Your Workforce

Developing Cyber-Smart Employees through Phishing Simulation

The unfortunate truth of cybersecurity is that, irrespective of the money your organization pumps into building an advanced, resilient, and future-proof cybersecurity posture, a lack of cyber hygiene will bring it down like a house of cards.

People are at the front and center of good cyber hygiene. Employees must follow a set of well-established procedures to ensure they do not put data and the cybersecurity framework of their organization at risk.

But how do employees assess the risk profile of an email or message to make informed decisions, especially when it comes to phishing?

The answer lies in phishing simulation campaigns.

A phishing simulation is a mock real-world scenario in which fake phishing emails are sent to employees as part of a training exercise. The objective behind this exercise is to help employees better recognize such emails and sift fake messages from the real deal. Such simulations also help them respond appropriately to such emails. This action includes not clicking on malicious links or responding to these messages and flagging them for the IT security teams.

Phishing simulation campaigns should be made an integral part of your security awareness and training programs. The whole idea behind such campaigns is to pinpoint the weaknesses in your employees from a cybersecurity perspective. The focus is on educating them about email security best practices, following up on their implementation, and reinforcing these practices in the minds of employees. By placing employees in the midst of these simulations, you will be setting the stage for improved cyber hygiene, ensuring that they don’t fall prey to even the most complex and sophisticated phishing attacks.

Types of Phishing Simulations

The idea behind phishing simulations is to replicate real-world attack techniques in a controlled environment. Employees continue to fall for various types of phishing attacks, which are prevalent and relevant in their industry. The focus is to give them a better understanding of what such attacks look like and ensure an appropriate response.

Here are some common types of phishing attack simulations:

1. Link-Based Phishing
   

   This is a common phishing attack across industries. Employees are sent an email containing a malicious link. The simulation tests their propensity to click on this link without verifying the antecedents/precedents and the genuineness of the mail or the link and its destination.

2. Attachment-Based Phishing
   

   Recipients get an email with a suspicious attachment. The email content attempts to persuade the recipient to download a PDF, Word document, or ZIP file onto their system. The simulation checks whether the employee opens it without caution or exercises restraint.

3. Data Entry Phishing
   

   This simulation is based on a familiar tactic employed by cybercriminals. A fake login page is created, and an email is sent that tries to trick employees into entering the ‘right’ credentials on this fake page. This phishing attack is called credential harvesting. As an organization, you can determine whether your employees are verifying domains before sharing sensitive credentials.

4. Business Email Compromise (BEC)
   

   Imagine receiving an email from an executive, leadership team, vendor, or partner that requests an urgent money transfer or the sharing of sensitive data. Your employee, who is in a position to share this money or information, does so. Unfortunately, the email is fake. It is such emails that are a part of the phishing simulation to instill a habit of verification before action in employees.

5. Spear Phishing (Personalized Attacks)
   

   Often, employees receive spear phishing emails that are customized to align with their role, collaboration with colleagues, and their participation in current projects. Such relevant information baked into fake messaging helps these emails pass muster. Spear phishing simulation helps train staff to recognize tell-tale signs of tailor-made, focused fake messaging.

6. Smishing (SMS Phishing) Simulations
   

   While email is one of the most common channels of communication in an organization, some employees might also get messages via text messages (on company mobile phones). These are SMS phishing attacks, and simulations are available to help raise awareness about such attacks.

7. Vishing (Voice Phishing) Simulations
   

   Another phishing attack that is getting popular, courtesy of the emergence of AI, is voice phishing. Here, employees receive a call from an attacker posing as a vendor, partner, IT support, bank employees, or even the C-Suite of the organization. By simulating such phone calls, an organization can assess the response discipline of its employees and identify the type of information that is at risk.

The right phishing simulation solutions will give you access to not just a huge number of campaign templates, but also allow you to create your own custom-made campaign.

The Ideal Phishing Simulation Campaign

A practical, success-oriented phishing simulation campaign is well-planned, extremely well-crafted, and is underpinned by precise objectives.

1. Planning the Simulation

   Every simulation should be purpose-driven. The objectives could include reducing the click rate, increasing the reporting rate, and improving BEC detection, among others.

   • Choose from link-based, attachment-based, BEC, spear phishing, smishing, or vishing campaigns. Ideally, mix high-probability everyday attacks with less frequent high-risk scenarios.
   • Pick an employee subset to target with the phishing simulation – all staff, specific departments, executive layer, new hires; exclusions (legal, HR, regulated employees), and success criteria.
   • Combine regular low-severity tests with occasional high-realism exercises.
   • Obtain sign-off from security leadership, HR, and legal; document escalation procedures for accidental real-world incidents.

2. Frequency of the Simulation Campaign

   Frequency should strike a balance between the threat landscape, existing levels of security awareness, and operational risk.

   • Plan low-risk simulations monthly or bi-monthly to reinforce basic cyber hygiene.
   • Run frequent campaigns (every 2–4 weeks) for high-risk teams (finance, IT, HR, legal) or teams that exhibit lower security awareness.
   • Run quarterly or biannual advanced simulations (multi-vector, BEC).
   • Run phishing campaigns within the first 30–60 days of onboarding and after major role transitions.

3. Format & Distribution

   Crafting a believable phishing campaign that has the kind of content that lures recipients is the key.

   • Write realistic copy that mirrors the organization’s tone and common industry scenarios. Keep industry context in mind and avoid unnecessary over-the-top subject lines.
   • Distribute simulations in waves to replicate a genuine phishing campaign spread.
   • Sends should happen during regular working hours when recipients are most likely to engage; can also plan sends when the employees are at their busiest but vary times to catch after-hours behaviors too.
   • Include SMS for smishing, phone calls for vishing drills, and follow-up emails/phone calls for multi-vector scenarios.

4. Monitoring Responses & Metrics

   Track behavior, not just clicks. Use measurement to close the loop on training.

   • Measure click-through rate, attachment opens, credential entry attempts (on fake pages), time-to-report, percentage of users who reported via the official channel, and repeat offenders.
   • Measure behavioral metrics like time-to-click (how quickly users react), whether recipients hovered to inspect links, and whether they checked sender details.
   • Measure metrics by department, role, and location to prioritize follow-up training.
   • Compare the various employee subsets over time, look for poor metrics, and correlate this lack of security awareness with security incidents that might have happened during this time.
   • Automated, immediate micro-training for those who fail (short educational page or brief quiz).

This layered approach works best when paired with broader email anti-phishing strategies that reinforce detection and response across all communication channels.

Interpreting Simulation Results

Running a phishing simulation is a job half done. The key is analyzing and interpreting the result. This process gives you clarity on the strength of your employee’s line of defense, its weaknesses, and the risk landscape.

Click Rate/Downloads

Evaluating the click rate, that is, the number of people who clicked on a malicious link or downloaded a document on their system, is a key starting point. If the click-throughs or downloads are at the higher end of the scale, then there is a lack of security awareness in the teams.

Immediate and Impactful Learning Exercise

Imagine a simulation wherein employees fail to identify a bait, click on a link, and land on an educational landing page – it is an impactful ‘gothcha’ moment which delivers immediate learning. They may have missed a red flag such as a mismatched sender domain, inaccuracies in the email content, or something else. The learning is immediate.

Reinforce, Do Not Punish

The ‘name and shame’ approach doesn’t work when it comes to security awareness. Your role as an organization is to establish a security culture based on the continuous reinforcement of positive security behaviors. If you have identified a set of people who have been categorized as ‘at serious risk’, make sure you schedule a compulsory refresher module or targeted awareness workshops.

Trend Analysis Over Time

Phishing simulation is a continuous exercise, and over the course of multiple simulations, you get a solid understanding of the security awareness posture of your employees. You can spot employees who are improving, regressing, or those who have plateaued. This helps the phishing exercise to evolve.

Strategic Phishing Simulation Roadmap for CISOs

• Every simulation is a data source. Treat it as such. Analyze metrics such as click rates, reporting times, and escalation gaps, and use the insights to improve phishing simulations.
• Provide immediate, personalized learning when an employee interacts with a simulated phish to reinforce the right behavior while the memory is fresh.
• Schedule recurring, varied phishing scenarios to build natural affinity for cyber hygiene and prevent complacency.
• Pair simulation-based training with infrastructure-level email authentication. Implement DMARC policies along with Verified Mark Certificates (VMC) or Common Mark Certificates (CMC) to visually authenticate legitimate messages in employee inboxes. This reinforces training outcomes by helping users instantly distinguish trusted emails from impersonated ones.
• Keep updating training materials and attack templates based on simulation results and the latest industry-wide phishing trends.
• Use metrics as a benchmark. Improved reporting and a reduction in clicks over time reflect a maturing security culture.
• Recognize and incentivize employees who consistently identify and report suspicious messages to encourage broader participation.

Building Long-Term Resilience

The key objective of incorporating phishing simulation into your cybersecurity framework is not just maintaining cyber hygiene. It is about building a more robust framework that not only includes advanced security technologies but also effectively improves the security awareness of employees who are susceptible to phishing attacks. At the end of the day, cybersecurity is all about keeping the IT infrastructure more resilient. You cannot win by focusing only on processes and platforms. Phishing simulations help you make people a key pillar of your cybersecurity strategy.