Case Studies

How an Accounting Firm Uses KnowBe4
To Improve Cybersecurity

Employees at an accounting firm in Sarasota, FL, saw their city government get hit with ransomware that was launched via an employee clicking on a phishing email.

They realized this could happen to them and reached out to KnowBe4. Now that all users are stepped through security awareness training and receive simulated phishing tests on a regular basis, the firm has seen a positive change in user behavior.

Internet Service Provider Case Study

A South American internet service provider called Desktop needed to improve their overall infosec posture after going public, and this meant a focus on a culture of security awareness. Desktop’s cybersecurity staff rolled out KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, resulting in better employee response to phishing emails and greater awareness of cybersecurity threats overall.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed this organization to:

• Deploy employee training on a biweekly basis
• Achieve 88% employee training completion rates
• Reduce phishing click rates through continuous simulated phishing tests
• Secure board and shareholder buy-in for the program

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Energy Sector Case Study

A global African energy organization needed an engaging way to educate employees about cyberthreats after relying solely on policy failed to achieve results. The organization teamed up with a KnowBe4 Premier Partner to deploy the KnowBe4 security awareness training platform and soon saw lower phishing simulation click-through rates and a stronger foundation of security awareness for all employees.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed this organization to:

• Reduce Phish-prone Percentage^TM from 70% to 25% within four months and to less than 10% within one year
• Improve the effectiveness of their response team through users reporting an average of 140 suspicious emails every month via the Phish Alert Button
• Encourage employees to embrace security awareness as a concept and act as evangelists for what they have learned

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Government Administration Case Study

The Birkenfeld National Park District in Germany became all too aware of the need for sound cybersecurity practices after a cyber attack crippled a neighboring district for six months. Birkenfeld administrators rolled out KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to deliver engaging training content to employees on a regular basis and ensure employee vigilance with simulated phishing tests.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Birkenfeld to:

• Reduce Phish-prone^TM Percentage among staff from an initial 15.7% to 3% in less than one year
• Achieve training completion rates consistently above 95%
• Get the security awareness training program up and running in less than one month

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Construction Case Study

The Brazilian construction firm OEC provides services in the engineering, heavy civil construction and maintenance segments of industrial enterprises. With many different locations, the organization needed to build a unique security culture and train approximately 4,500 users in different languages around the world. OEC selected KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform because of the quality and quantity of content and reporting capabilities.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed OEC to:

• Simultaneously train employees in three different languages
• Achieve a 94% training completion rate
• Deliver more than 1,600 hours of training in three months

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Luxury Travel Case Study

The luxury travel website Secret Escapes needed to reduce overall phishing risk while building a culture of security due to a sharp uptick in CEO fraud and other social engineering attacks. Secret Escapes deployed KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to deliver yearly training on a variety of necessary topics and better equip their users against phishing threats.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Secret Escapes to:

• Reduce organization wide Phish-prone Percentage from 17.9% to 4.4%
• Access detailed reports on users' phishing and training activity
• Easily add new training content on pressing topics such as anti-bribery and DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion)

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Healthcare Technology Case Study

The Brazilian healthcare information technology organization Shift needed to safeguard data and increase employee awareness on information security. Shift selected KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to help drive the organization’s security culture with engaging content to help increase employee training completions.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Shift to:

• Achieve more than 80% employee compliance with security training
• Leverage managers and a dedicated training analyst to help reinforce the security culture
• Make 95% of employees more aware of information security

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Technology Firm Case Study

The technology firm Neoway needed to pivot from a startup mindset to a strategic culture of security due to a strong growth trajectory. Neoway launched KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to deliver varied phishing tests and engaging content. Neoway also deployed the PhishER Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform so their infosec team could better assess and prioritize user-reported threats.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Neoway to:

• Reduce organization wide Phish-prone Percentage from 20% to 3%
• Improve phishing email report rates from 7% to 98%
• Deliver hundreds of monthly phishing tests to 400 employees

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Transportation Technology Firm Case Study

The transportation technology firm Location World needed a flexible way to keep data security top of mind for its employees, who work in multiple countries throughout Latin America. Location World deployed KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to deliver engaging content in multiple languages and gauge employee knowledge through testing before and after training.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Location World to:

• Improve phishing email identification rate from 50% to 99%
• Deliver 1,000 hours of training to 160 employees
• Achieve 90% employee compliance with security training

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High-Tech Manufacturer Case Study

The precision engineering manufacturer Spectris needed to shift the focus of its employee training when many employees switched to working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. Spectris’ CISO relied on KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to provide flexible and relevant simulated phishing tests and training to ensure a holistic and tailored approach to security awareness.

Learn how KnowBe4's platform allowed Spectris to:

• Improve phishing email reporting from around 20% to 40% in a year
• Launch courseware and training content in 40 languages
• Have 98% of staff complete 10 training courses a year
• Successfully deploy monthly simulated phishing tests

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Critical Infrastructure Manufacturer Case Study

The critical infrastructure manufacturer MESA knows the importance of good IT hygiene for the hundreds of employees using its network and technology systems. MESA’s director of information technology relies on KnowBe4’s security awareness training (SAT) and simulated phishing platform to test employees’ critical thinking skills and support a resilient security culture. MESA also deployed KnowBe4’s PhishER lightweight SOAR platform to cut down on incident response time and efficiently mitigate threats.

Learn how KnowBe4's SAT and PhishER platforms allowed MESA to:

• Reduce their Phish-prone Percentage from 52% to 8.6%
• Provide in‐depth data in visualized schema and arm leadership with credible business intelligence with powerful platform reporting features
• Save nearly seven weeks’ time annually for the IT team by automatically investigating, quarantining and removing malicious emails with PhishER
• Deliver security awareness training and automated investigation of user-reported email vulnerabilities across all subsidiaries through platform integration

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Marketing Technology Firm Case Study

The marketing technology firm Listrak prioritizes cybersecurity to ensure the sensitive information of both clients and employees is safeguarded. Listrak’s IT and information security managers use KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to deploy engaging training on a regular basis and keep user skills tuned with frequent phishing tests. Additionally, they use KnowBe4’s PhishER lightweight SOAR platform to cut down on reported email noise and save weeks of work hours per year.

Learn how KnowBe4's training and PhishER platforms allowed them to:

• Achieve an employee Phish-prone Percentage of 4.9%, one full point below the industry average
• Reduce the number of suspicious emails manually investigated monthly from approximately 70 to 20, resulting in a savings of at least 12.5 hours/month
• Collect all the information about a possible phishing email in one place thanks to the PhishER dashboard, making it easier and quicker when Listrak’s team does need to manually investigate a message
• Improve security culture throughout the organization thanks to engaging content, such as “The Inside Man” video series

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Marketing Technology Firm Case Study

The marketing technology firm Minu, based in Brazil, requires solid information security policies and employee knowledge to safeguard sensitive end-user data it stores and manages. Minu’s information security coordinator uses KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to promote a strong security culture throughout the organization and deliver focused, role-specific training to all employees.

Learn how KnowBe4's training platform allowed them to:

• Deliver more than 58,000 hours of training
• Achieve an 89% training completion rate among employees
• Further progress toward achieving ISO 27001 certification
• Gain trust from customers and partners

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Hiring Technology Firm Case Study

The hiring technology firm Censia is entrusted with the sensitive data of its clients, meaning its employees need to know the risks cybercriminals pose to this data. Censia’s vice president of customer support and security operations uses KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing platform to increase phishing awareness and support a security culture focused on data protection. Additionally, KnowBe4’s PhishER SOAR platform brings phishing management efficiencies that save time and money.

Learn how KnowBe4's training and PhishER platforms allowed them to:

• Reduce employee Phish-prone^TM Percentage from 17% to 10% as employees were given more challenging simulated phishing emails
• Increase employee reporting of suspicious emails via the use of the Phish Alert Button
• Reduce the need to hire additional staff with PhishER’s automatic analysis of potential phishing emails
• Improve reporting using the robust dashboard within the KnowBe4 security awareness training platform

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Hospitality Case Study

Multinational hospitality provider Whitbread understands just how vital knowledge of phishing email tactics is to organizational security. KnowBe4’s simulated phishing capabilities and integrated training helped the information security awareness and communications manager improve phishing report rates and drive user engagement, reminding users of the vital part they play in Whitbread’s security culture.

Learn how KnowBe4’s simulated phishing platform with integrated training allowed them to:

• Increase reported simulated phishing emails from 2% to 31% in less than a year
• Improve communication between users and the infosec team
• Enroll nearly a quarter of users in an inaugural simulated phishing tournament
• Raise user engagement with security training and simulated phishing

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Nonprofit Case Study

The head of IT security for the children’s charity Action for Children is entrusted with ensuring that employees understand that protecting the organization's data is about protecting the children. The combination of the KnowBe4 training and simulated phishing platform with the PhishER Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform helped strengthen the nonprofit’s security culture and keeps data security best practices top of mind.

Learn how the KnowBe4 platform, combined with PhishER, allowed them to:

• Reduce their Phish-prone Percentage from 10% to 1.3%
• Discover attacks more quickly thanks to PhishER automated analysis
• Improve response times to phishing attacks due to ability to retract messages from inboxes via Microsoft integration
• Provide more time for the security team to focus on additional tasks and leave mundane analysis to PhishER
• Promote a strong security culture with a growing understanding of personal responsibility regarding security programs

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Retail Case Study

The information security officer for the clothing retailer River Island knew the organization needed to put a stronger focus on cybersecurity while educating a young and vibrant workforce to identify simple email threats. KnowBe4’s simulated phishing capabilities significantly reduced the organization’s Phish-prone^TM Percentage (PPP) and helped InfoSec leaders make the case for a more robust security awareness training initiative.

Learn how KnowBe4's simulated phishing platform allowed them to:

• Deploy simulated phishing tests every two weeks to more than 2,000 employees
• Decreased organizational PPP from 33% to 4.9%
• Help make the case for multi-factor authentication across the organization
• Improve relations between employees and InfoSec team

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Higher Education Case Study

The IT cybersecurity training director for the University of Oklahoma knows well the value of tailored training content in achieving behavioral change. KnowBe4’s integrated training and phishing platform, teamed with the PhishER Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform, have helped the university instill a culture of security across faculty, staff and students.

Learn how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and phishing platform, alongside PhishER, allowed them to:

• Reduce faculty and staff Phish-prone Percentage (PPP) from 13.9% to 4.3%
• Deliver just-in-time training to thousands of university employees based on their interactions with phishing tests
• Identify and remove nearly 150,000 potentially phishy emails from user inboxes using PhishER

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Technology Firm Case Study

This risk intelligence and event management firm that serves 30,000 customers, OnSolve, is laser focused on helping organizations mitigate physical threats and remain agile in a world where crises happen every day. After an acquisition brought KnowBe4 to their attention as a security awareness training provider, the vice president of security and compliance determined KnowBe4 was the best of all worlds from a cybersecurity perspective.  

Learn how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and phishing platform allowed them to:

• Reduce their Phish-prone Percentage to 3-4%
• Improve rapport between employees and the IT security team with the help of the Phish Alert Button
• Make the IT security team’s job easier when it comes to detecting and addressing phishing emails

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City Government Case Study

This IT department in the city government of Sarasota, Florida, has always focused on getting the most bang for the taxpayer’s buck, working on ways to reduce cost and maximize value using strategic IT processes. When they were looking for a replacement for their security awareness training vendor, KnowBe4 proved the most strategic and economical choice. 

Learn how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and phishing platform allowed them to:

• Reduce user simulated phishing click rates from 30% before training to 4% and improve phishing email report rates via the Phish Alert Button
• Engage employees with varied training approaches
• Save time and money through seamless and turnkey implementation and integration into existing systems

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Commercial Bank Case Study

This commercial bank based in Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard Bank, has built up their security awareness training program since 2011 using KnowBe4’s innovative and evolving platform and available training content. The variety of the training and simulated phishing content have helped build a broad focus on cybersecurity at all the bank’s 10 branches.

Learn how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and phishing platform allowed them to:

• Reduce user simulated phishing clicks and increase reporting of actual phishing emails
• Save time via automating the delivery of training and phishing based on user behavior and attributes
• Easily manage reporting and collaboration with the bank’s IT team

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Financial Services Case Study

This financial services organization in South Africa, Capitec, recognized the importance of a robust security awareness training program to reinforce its security footprint and transform how employees engaged with security training and awareness. The company spent six years focusing on its awareness journey, investing into training solutions and systems to try and engage with a diverse workforce, but transformed this in less than a year with the KnowBe4 platform.

Read how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and simulated phishing platform allowed them to:

• Reduce the manual and operational burden on the security team
  
• Keep training relevant and ongoing with automated phishing templates
  
• Improve rates of real phishing and risk identification

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Wholesale Distributor Case Study

This wholesale distributor in Europe, SIG plc., realized that along with the growing importance in technology and data, it became increasingly vital that SIG was protected from a cyberattack. The board clearly understood the risks of phishing attacks and gave their chief information security officer the green light to take the necessary measures to improve the company’s cybersecurity. In his plan, security awareness was made a priority.

By utilizing the KnowBe4 security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, SIG saw:

• A reduction in Phish-Prone percentage from 32% to 7%
  
• Real value from the platform through monthly measurements and metric reports
  
• Employees provided tons of positive feedback

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Software Provider Case Study

This multi-national software provider, TXT e-solutions, was well aware of of the problems that organizations face with social engineering attacks, which is why they believe that educating employees about the dangers is so important. Given the ISO 27001 compliance requirement, their desire to strengthen the company's security culture and their need to satisfy GDPR compliance requirements, they found KnowBe4 to be the best fit to meet their needs.

See how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and simulated phishing platform helped them:

• Reduce their Phish-Prone Percentage from 17.4% to 0.7% in five months
• Encourage employees to come to the IT Support Team to double check suspicious looking emails before clicking on them

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Physical Security Case Study

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Fashion Marketplace Case Study

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Printing Ink Producer Case Study

With 10,000 employees around the world, Sun Chemical needed a higher level of security awareness training and decided to choose KnowBe4 based on recommendations. The team decided to use Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training for all users as a foundational educational element. They also started running short videos every month for users, with phishing tests about every two weeks. Another KnowBe4 product called PhishER, which allows users to report suspicious real emails to the security team, also helped to inspire additional, effective tests.

By utilizing the suite of KnowBe4's products for security awareness training, simulated phishing and PhishER, Sun Chemical experienced:

• A reduction in Phish-Prone percentage from approximately 20% to 4% globally
• An improved security culture, with employees understanding what the security team does now because they are part of the team’s everyday work
• A company full of proactive users who come to the security team when they see something suspicious

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Non-Profit Education Case Study

A non-profit educational institution which operates primarily online knew that they needed to make cybersecurity a top priority. The team has made efforts to build internal cybersecurity practice over the years, but as they grew rapidly and understood the constant growth and ever-presence of security threats, they realized that they needed help educating and protecting their users against cyber attacks. Since investing in KnowBe4’s highly recommended security awareness training and simulated phishing, this educational institution has seen remarkable security improvements.

Some of this educational institution's improvements using KnowBe4’s security awareness training and simulated phishing include:

• Increased security posture against cyber threats
• Improved users’ security-related behaviors
• Decreased the organization’s Phish-Prone percentage by more than 20%

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Information Security Partner Case Study

This specialist information security partner, Saepio, found that the human aspect of security had been overlooked and they were in search of a partner that could assist with this issue. Saepio came across KnowBe4's vast library of training content, which was a real differentiator from other competitors.

• Saepio was impressed by KnowBe4's reporting features and a recently added 'security awareness proficiency assessment'
• Saepio and KnowBe4 have built a true partnership and Saepio's customers are now better equipped to tackle cyber threats

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English Theatre Case Study

This theatre, the Mayflower Theatre, wanted to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity and adopted the KnowBe4 platform to educate their employees, improve cybersecurity and raise awareness. The IT team wanted to find a way to mitigate cybersecurity threats by raising awareness about common risks such as phishing emails and scams involving fraudulent websites.

• For the offering and the price, KnowBe4 was unique to anything they'd seen in the market
• Having KnowBe4 has led to a decrease in successful phishing emails being clicked on by staff

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IT Support and Consulting Firm Case Study

This fully managed IT support and technology consulting services firm based in London, Netstar, recognized that the number one threat to their clients' environment was employees. By placing a greater focus on the people aspect of cybersecurity with awareness training, Netstar found that KnowBe4's concise video training suited its clients well.

• Netstar's clients now feel educated and more confident when dealing with cyber threats thanks to KnowBe4's training  
• They appreciated how KnowBe4's training helped them be part of a positive outcome

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Ireland Nonprofit Case Study

This Irish nonprofit organization, Irish Cattle Breeding Federation and Sheep Ireland, was looking to ramp up their culture of security awareness. After another training provider's content lacked employee buy-in and engagement, they decided to search for a training option to better fit their needs without exceeding the budget.

• Based on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, KnowBe4 stood out
• Implementation of KnowBe4's training was "frustration free"
• Employees became visibly more security-aware

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Managed IT Provider Case Study

This UK-based reseller of technology solutions and services, Softcat, had two major challenges when it came to security awareness—it was conducted on an ad hoc basis and the field in which Softcat operates requires that employees work with a large number of third parties. The board recognized the need to both implement the training and to ensure it was well executed.

• As a reseller of KnowBe4’s services, Softcat saw the popularity amongst its own clients and knew that KnowBe4 was the right choice for them
• KnowBe4 makes the process of required training “seamless”
• KnowBe4’s content range and customization facilities are among the most advantageous aspects of the service

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Case Study on Security Culture

This European-based telematics company, ABAX, said that people were probably one of the largest vulnerabilities when it came to the security of the business. They needed to establish a security culture baseline within the company.

See how CLTRe, a KnowBe4 company, helped them take control of their security culture by:

• Utilizing a series of surveys to gauge the baseline security culture of the employees
• Establishing a clear and measurable way to define security culture with factual numbers
• Advancing the maturity of the security program and testing the knowledge of its users through KnowBe4's engaging training modules and simulated phishing tests

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Poultry Company Case Study

A leading U.S.-based poultry company is committed to innovation and understands the importance of technology when it comes to being a leader in their industry. They saw a direct financial impact due to an incident that occurred and decided it was time to implement security awareness training.

This poultry company had a great overall experience with the KnowBe4 security awareness training and simulated phishing platform:

• KnowBe4's implementation was very smooth compared to other technology vendors
• A reduction in Phish-Prone percentage from 17-18% down to only 2.6%
• An increased connection with employees, including employees reporting more suspicious emails to the IT department

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Solutions Provider Case Study

This cybersecurity solutions provider, TechForce, began to have many of their clients ask about security awareness training offerings. Realizing that security awareness training was missing from their portfolio, TechForce came across KnowBe4 thanks to a suggestion from one of their customers.

• KnowBe4's offerings stood out significantly from the competition
• Almost 70% of TechForce’s revenue comes from the business generated from the KnowBe4 partnership
• TechForce says that KnowBe4's content is the best and biggest in the world

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Telecommunications Case Study

Telkom South Africa invested in ongoing employee training and development to ensure cybersecurity awareness and compliance. Cybersecurity is one of its top strategic risks and they were looking for a way to change the culture of thinking within the company and to provide employees with the tools they needed to remain aware.

• End-user surveys allowed for Telkom to measure the training effectiveness, where users gave an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 from more than 5,000 employees
• Since deploying KnowBe4's Phish Alert Button, Telkom employees have reported more than 8,000 emails

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Nonprofit Case Study

This nonprofit organization wanted their staff to adopt a security mindset. And they set out to do just that by building up their human firewall. With a high Phish-Prone Percentage, the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities aimed to train their staff and enrich their security posture.

See how KnowBe4's integrated security awareness training and simulated phishing platform helped them:

• Reduce their Phish-Prone Percentage from 36% to 2.2% within 12 months
• Have the ability to evolve their security culture and prepare users for more challenging social engineering and phishing schemes
• Create an internal security culture that encourages a relationship between users and the IT department

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Education Case Study

After an Illinois school district fell victim to a DDoS attack, security and phishing became a higher priority. They needed a better way to protect sensitive data and ensure adherence to The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Key goals were to create awareness around phishing and teach employees how to properly vet emails.

See how KnowBe4's Integrated Security Awareness Training and Simulated Phishing Platform helped them:

• Drop their Phish-prone percentage from 27% to .03% in 5 months
• Improve the security-aware culture amongst staff
• Promote positive teacher engagement with training content
• Reinforce cautious vetting of emails with phishing and training campaigns

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