Re: Initial Phishing Simulation - Do you tell them first?

[Eric Weakland <eric () AMERICAN EDU>]

David,

I’m firmly in the Notify initially and stress it’s never punitive camp.  We’ve been doing Phishing Awareness 
Simulations for 3+ years.

Here is what AU did.


  1.  Executive buy in.  We did a Pilot program with the President of the university and their cabinet at the time, 
since they were frequent spear phishing targets, they were very receptive.  This gave us their buy in and support.  
They were sent phishing simulation messages and we were able to answer any of their questions and take their feedback – 
and the president sent a campus wide message announcing the program, stressing it was never going to be punitive and 
was supported by them.
  2.  Initial campus wide simulations were announced in advance in decreasing specificity over the 1st year.  First we 
told them the simulation was coming on “Tuesday at 3:30pm” next time it was “Tuesday afternoon”  then “sometime 
Tuesday” then “Sometime this week” and so on.   After a semester, we started just sending once a semester messages 
reminding the community that we would be doing this monthly.
  3.  We do simulations once a month to all faculty and staff, and several extra times (once a week) during 
cybersecurity awareness month.
  4.  The executive (president and cabinet level) awareness and public sanctioning of the program has gone a long long 
way to overcoming any pushback from faculty and staff.

Cheers,


Eric Weakland, CISSP, CISM, CRISC, ITIL
Director, Information Security
Office of Information Technology
American University
eric at american.edu<http://american.edu/>
202.885.2241

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From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> on behalf of David Eilken 
<david.eilken () DOMAIL MARICOPA EDU>
Reply-To: "david.eilken () domail maricopa edu" <david.eilken () DOMAIL MARICOPA EDU>
Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 9:52 PM
To: "SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU" <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: [SECURITY] Initial Phishing Simulation - Do you tell them first?

All,

I have seen some threads on phishing in the past, but have a very specific question. When you started your phishing 
campaign/ program, did you notify your staff / faculty that the stimulations were coming (and not to worry about 
getting in trouble for failing)?

I know KnowBe4 suggests not informing the population prior to doing a baseline. I've heard some pretty bad horror 
stories about the faculty not being too happy about getting a test phishing email sprung on them out of the blue. I 
personally don't see a huge upside to not letting them know what the broader campaign is about and how it supports the 
infosec program. I would be surprised if it would scewd the results much. We already send out notifications when a real 
campaign is active.

Appreciate your input. Hope your enjoying the summer.


Best,
Dave

--
[Maricopa Community College District Office logo]
DAVID EILKEN
MARICOPA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Information Security Officer | ITS
2411 West 14th Street, Tempe, AZ 85281
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