You may not be able to prevent every phishing email from reaching your employees’ inboxes, but the right training program can significantly improve your chances.
According to a recent study, phishing remains the top entry point in cyber breaches, accounting for approximately 15% of incidents. AI is one of the main drivers of this continued growth, enabling cybercriminals to create more realistic and personalized messages and distribute them en masse.
Technical measures such as spam filters and DMARC email authentication protocols block many malicious messages, but phishing is ultimately a human problem. Security-conscious companies are increasingly investing in phishing training for their employees, making this an important factor in a stronger security culture and safer behavior.
So what will it take to build an effective employee phishing training program in 2026?
Focus on behavior change, not awareness
The ultimate goal of phishing training should not just be to raise awareness. The goal is to actually reduce the security risk. Most people understand what phishing is, but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily lead to the right decisions when a compelling email lands in their inboxes.
While completion rates or quiz scores are helpful, they should not be the primary measure of how effective a phishing training program is. The focus must shift to increasing reporting rates.
To improve results, the type of training is most important. Presentation-style sessions are fine for awareness, but to develop better habits, employees need to go through actual phishing simulations and realistic scenarios that reflect the attacks they may encounter in their daily work.
Continuously conduct training
The frequency of training is also a crucial factor. Phishing threats are constantly evolving, so a once-a-year training program will quickly become outdated. Instead, organizations should take an ongoing approach to phishing intelligence.
Short, regular training modules and regular phishing simulations help reinforce safe behavior over time while familiarizing employees with the latest phishing techniques. Such constant presence helps to evoke instinctive reactions, such as: B. pausing before clicking a link or checking unusual requests.
Continuous training also allows companies to gradually increase the realism and difficulty of phishing simulations. As employees improve, training can introduce more complex scenarios that better reflect modern attacks.
Role-based and contextual training
Not all employees face the same phishing risks. While there are generic phishing campaigns that are common, most successful attacks are personalized and tailored to the target’s role, responsibilities, or access within the organization.
For example, finance teams may encounter invoice fraud, while HR receives phishing emails disguised as job applications or requests for employee documents. Executives and executives are common targets of spear phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks posing as trusted partners or internal employees.
Modern training platforms are increasingly using AI to generate realistic phishing scenarios at scale. Organizations can create a variety of training emails that closely mimic real-world attacks and are specific to different roles, departments, and risk profiles.
Strong reporting culture
In most workplaces, employees often don’t think about reporting phishing attempts. Even if they detect a phishing attack and rightly back off, they often simply delete the email and move on without notifying the security team.
To address this, reporting should be made as simple as possible, ideally through one-click report buttons built directly into the email client. A strong reporting culture also depends on the way organizations respond to incidents. If employees fear being blamed or penalized for clicking a malicious link, they may hesitate to report incidents, which can delay detection and response.
A good approach is to view mistakes as learning opportunities and have security teams use these incidents to refine and adapt training materials by focusing on employee vulnerabilities.
Track effectiveness over time
Without metrics, it’s difficult to determine whether a phishing training program is working. Companies should track key indicators such as phishing report rates, report speed, and click-through rates when conducting phishing simulations.
These metrics provide valuable insights into how employees respond to potential threats. If these metrics improve over time, it’s a good sign that the training program is moving in the right direction.
Tracking performance over time also helps identify repeat offenders or employees who may need additional guidance. The same thing can be applied to entire departments. Some departments may have significantly higher click-through rates on simulations, which is a good indicator that improvements to the training material are needed for that particular group.
Diploma
Phishing will likely remain one of the biggest threats businesses face in 2026 and beyond. The human factor is the ultimate target for attackers and a critical defense that organizations must strengthen.
By building a phishing training program that focuses on realism and improving employee behavior, companies can make the human factor their strongest asset, contributing to a resilient security culture.
