Terranova Security has announced the 2020 edition of the Gone Phishing TournamentTM event, scheduled to take place in October to coincide with National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The inaugural 2019 event, along with the resulting Gone Phishing Tournament Benchmark Global Report, highlighted the need for organizations to implement a security awareness training program supported by consistent phishing simulations.
The Gone Phishing Tournament, co-sponsored by Microsoft, uses an email template from Attack simulation training, a new capability of Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) releasing later this year. Attack simulation training is an intelligent social engineering risk management tool that uses context-aware simulations and hyper-targeted training to train employees, and measures behavior change all on an automated platform, simplifying the design and deployment of security awareness training.
Adding Microsoft as a sponsor for the 2020 Gone Phishing Tournament marks a new chapter in the ongoing partnership between the two organizations, one that centers around the comprehensive Terranova Security content catalog and the company’s commitment to a human-centric approach to security awareness. It’s also another example of how Terranova Security phishing content will bring the best in security awareness training to Microsoft customers.
The 2020 Gone Phishing Tournament comes at a time where an accelerated transition to a remote workforce due to the COVID-19 has put an even greater emphasis on the importance of security awareness training for all employees.
“Businesses want to strengthen their defenses to further enhance protection from phishing attacks and other cyber threats,” said Theo Zafirakos, CISO at Terranova Security. “The data provided by the Phishing Global Benchmark Report is essential for organizations looking to understand their users’ current level of security awareness and reduce their risk for data exposure.”
The first edition of the Terranova Security Gone Phishing Tournament took place over five days in October 2019. The goal of the tournament was to allow organizations to discover how their click rate compared to those of organizations with similar characteristics including vertical or industry, size, and geographical location.
“The second edition of the Gone Phishing Tournament will be a very exciting and informative event,” said Lise Lapointe, author and CEO of Terranova Security. “As a leader and partner of choice for security awareness training, we’re committed to supporting cyber security leaders with updated data and global phishing benchmarks to help build effective programs that increase awareness and reduce human risk.”
Key Takeaways from the 2019 Gone Phishing TournamentTM
The Terranova Security 2019 Phishing Global Benchmark Report provided in-depth insight on the event’s results, including click rate statistics by vertical, organization size, geographical location, and level of security awareness and phishing simulation programs in place.
“We believe in using insight, tangible data that can help organizations take actionable steps to increase cyber security and phishing awareness,” said Brandon Koeller, Principal Program Manager, Attack Simulator and End User Training at Microsoft Corp. “
The resulting click rate benchmarking yielded tangible insights concerning employee cyber security and phishing awareness. Once organizations understand how susceptible their users are to phishing threats, they can take actionable steps that lower their click rate and secure their sensitive data.
The 2019 Phishing Global Benchmark Report reinforces how important it is for organizations to use a combination of security awareness training and phishing simulations to decrease the click rate and reduce the likelihood of these attacks being successful.
Even in organizations with comprehensive security awareness programs in place, employees are still clicking phishing emails. 11% of recipients clicked the phishing link and 2% of recipients submitted their credentials on the phishing website.
Other key findings from the 2019 report include:
- In organizations with no security awareness programs in place, 13% of users clicked the phishing link.
- In organizations with only a security awareness program in place (but no phishing simulations), 29% of users submitted their credentials after clicking a phishing link.
- In organizations with both security awareness and phishing simulations, the credential submission rate is 47% lower.
Register now and reserve your free phishing simulation as part of the 2020 Gone Phishing Tournament.
