08/10/2025
Cybersecurity awareness training is critical to business continuity, reputation, and compliance, yet the largest vulnerability is often employee decisions.
A rushed click, hasty password reset, or misdirected payment can trigger catastrophic loss. Organisations invest in awareness training, budgets are approved, compliance tracks completion, but breaches persist; all because phishing can bypass filters, therefore scams succeed, and incidents escalate. Training might meet obligations, but it rarely changes behaviour. Staff end up sitting through annual presentations, pass quizzes, then return to work none the wiser.
Attackers will exploit the gap between training slides and real-world behaviour, and as threats evolve with AI-driven scams, completion statistics are not enough.
Organisations must prove staff recognise and report threats, improving resilience beyond compliance.
1. People click first and think later
One of the most telling indicators of weak cybersecurity awareness training is how staff handle suspicious messages. If phishing simulations or real-world attempts still result in widespread clicking and credential entry, your training is not shaping behaviour.
Why this happens
- Training is too theoretical and does not show real examples of current threats.
- Sessions are infrequent and quickly forgotten.
- Employees do not know how or where to report something suspicious.
What to do
- Use frequent, bite-sized training instead of a single annual session. Short, practical tips every month keep awareness alive.
- Run realistic simulations that mimic current tactics, including text, voice and collaboration platforms, not just email.
- Provide an easy “Report Suspicious” button in the email client or chat platform and recognise and praise staff who report quickly.
2. Your cybersecurity awareness training is compliance-driven, not behaviour-driven
If your programme focuses solely on ticking a regulatory box, for example, an e-learning module with a short quiz, you may have compliance evidence but no culture change.
Why this happens
- Senior leaders see awareness as an audit requirement, not a risk reduction activity.
- Content is generic and not tailored to your organisation’s threat profile.
- Completion rates, not real-world improvement, are the only metric.
What to do
- Shift the conversation: the goal is fewer incidents, not just 100 percent completion.
- Tailor scenarios to your business. Show what a phishing email would look like using your supplier’s and internal tools.
- Report impact metrics to leadership, such as reduction in click-through on simulations or faster reporting time.
3. Employees fear blame or repercussions
If staff worry they will be punished or embarrassed for falling for a phish, they may hide incidents rather than report them. This silence can make a small event escalate into a breach.
Why this happens
- Training uses shaming language or public scoreboards.
- Managers scold rather than coach after mistakes.
- No clear safe reporting channel exists.
What to do
- Build a just culture: mistakes are treated as learning opportunities.
- Encourage open reporting and respond with support, not blame.
- Recognise and thank employees who escalate suspicious events promptly.
4. Executives exempt themselves
A frequent blind spot is leadership. If your executives skip training or bypass verification processes, the programme’s credibility collapses and risk skyrockets. Criminals know leaders hold access and authority and target them aggressively.
Why this happens
- Training is positioned as something for “users,” not leaders.
- Senior staff perceive they are too busy or too experienced.
- Processes like dual verification are ignored by executives under pressure.
What to do
- Mandate training for everyone, including the board and C-suite.
- Include leadership-specific modules: deepfake voice risk, CEO fraud, and executive-targeted spear phishing.
- Publicly support controls. Executives should model behaviour by following verification steps themselves.
5. No link to incident response and continuous improvement
Cybersecurity awareness training cannot exist in a vacuum. If your programme never updates based on real incidents, it becomes stale and irrelevant.
Why this happens
- Security incidents are investigated quietly without feedback to staff.
- Training is purchased as an off-the-shelf package and rarely refreshed.
- There is no loop between SOC findings and awareness content.
What to do
- Feed lessons from real attacks back into training.
- After any incident, debrief staff on what happened and how it was detected or missed.
- Review and update training content at least quarterly, aligning with threat intelligence and industry trends.
What you can do differently
- Introduce adaptive training: tailor content based on past mistakes or role risk.
- Simulate realistic scenarios: use actual types of phishing or social engineering relevant to your industry, not generic templates.
- Embed reminders into workflow: pop-ups or contextual alerts when someone uses corporate tools (e.g. email, file sharing).
- Measure beyond clicks: track reporting, incident response times, near-misses.
- Cultivate psychological safety: ensure staff don’t fear blame but understand error as chance to learn.
We’ve created a practical checklist to help you recognise and respond to phishing scams with confidence. It highlights the most common red flags and provides clear actions you can take to protect yourself and your organisation. Reviewing this checklist is a simple but effective way to strengthen your defences and put your training into practice, talking to our expert team will help too.
When these habits take hold, cybersecurity awareness training stops being a box tick. It becomes a living shield, adapting as fast as attackers adapt, and protecting your people, your data and your reputation.
Start a conversation with our security team, and they can guide you through the process to implement these crucial steps.
