Implementing Phished in your company: Key considerations for success

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a cyber attack method where criminals impersonate trusted entities (such as banks, delivery services, or even colleagues) to trick recipients into sharing sensitive information. Typically, phishing attempts come via:

Email phishing: Fake emails, with malicious links or attachments, designed to steal credentials or spread malware.
Spear phishing: Targeted attacks against specific individuals or companies.
Business Email Compromise (BEC): Impersonation of executives to trick employees into transferring money.
Smishing & Vishing: Phishing via SMS or voice calls.
Clone phishing: A legitimate email is duplicated and altered with malicious links.

The goal? To steal credentials, financial details, or gain access to systems for further attacks. Phishing is effective because it exploits human psychology: urgency, fear, and trust. Even the best spam filters cannot catch every phishing attempt, making employee awareness crucial.

Why training is the key to stopping phishing

Technical defenses can stop most phishing attempts, but human error remains the weakest link. A single employee clicking a malicious link can compromise an entire company network. That’s why phishing awareness training is essential. Instead of relying on one-time security workshops, continuous and realistic training creates lasting behavioral change.

What is Phished and why it matters?

Phished: A smarter way to build a Human Firewall

Phished is a phishing simulation and security awareness platform designed to test and train employees on identifying phishing threats. Implementing it helps organizations:

Evaluate how staff respond to phishing attacks
Boost security awareness through realistic simulations
Lower the risk of data breaches caused by human vulnerabilities

How Phished works

Automated Phishing Simulations
Employees receive realistic phishing attempts in their inboxes. These are harmless but mimic real-world attacks.
AI-Powered personalization
Training is adapted to each employee’s skill level and responses. This ensures relevant, engaging, and effective learning.
Immediate feedback & microlearning
If someone clicks a phishing simulation, they instantly receive short, interactive training modules to reinforce learning.
Comprehensive analytics & reporting
Security leaders can track vulnerabilities, measure risk scores, and build a roadmap for better cybersecurity awareness.
Continuous learning
Phished Academy builds lasting cyber resilience by providing short, interactive training courses that motivate employees to stay ahead of hackers with a full spectrum of security awareness that goes beyond phishing.

Planning your Phishing Simulations

Define realistic user personas for each simulation target group (e.g. finance, HR, IT). Tailor content to their daily routines and likely threat scenarios. Documenting objectives helps align the project with business needs and measure effectiveness.

Set clear goals:

Are you testing baseline awareness?
Rolling out mandatory training modules?
Running recurrent campaigns to measure progress?

Don’t worry about implementation.

We’ve got your covered!

Our team takes care of the entire Phished implementation process for you. From start to finish, setup is fully managed by us.

It only takes about one hour. Within the same day, your organization will be up and running with a fully automated, AI-driven phishing simulation platform.

So instead of worrying about configuration, integrations, or technical details, you can rest easy knowing we’ll handle everything. You’ll be ready to benefit from smarter phishing simulations, real-time training, and measurable risk reduction.

Implementing Phished: step by step

Best practices for using Phished

1. Support from stakeholders

Secure support from senior management and HR before launching. If employees feel tricked without prior communication, it may lead to mistrust or resistance. Transparency ensures that simulations are seen as supportive, not punitive.

2. Select target user groups

Start small by choosing specific departments or roles with higher exposure to risk, such as finance or IT. Pilot testing with smaller groups allows for refinement before scaling organization-wide.

3. Customize simulation content

Make simulations realistic and relevant. Use company branding, credible email templates, and common phishing hooks such as invoice requests, password resets, or delivery notifications. The more authentic, the better the learning experience.

4. Deploy in phases

Introduce simulations gradually. Start with low-risk exercises (e.g., simple “click here” links) and progress to more sophisticated challenges (credential harvesting, CEO fraud). This step-by-step approach builds resilience without overwhelming staff.

5. Training follow-up and feedback

When an employee falls for a simulation, direct them to a short awareness module immediately. Provide supportive, non-shaming feedback. The goal is education, not embarrassment. Positive reinforcement drives long-term behavioral change.

Practical tips: How to avoid phishing emails

Beyond simulations, employees can adopt simple habits to stay safe:

Check sender addresses carefully for misspelled domains.
Hover over links before clicking to confirm authenticity.
Watch out for urgency tactics such as “account suspension.”
Avoid unexpected attachments from unknown sources.
Look for poor spelling and grammar: a classic red flag.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for extra protection.
Report suspicious messages to IT or via your “report phishing” option.