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How PhishMe Works

As a Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) offering, PhishMe is executed and delivered from the Internet, effectively emulating the attack methods used by malicious hackers. With an annual license, you will have an account provisioned for your designated administrators to access the system and construct your customized phishing scenarios. Multiple administrators can be authorized to have access to the scenario creation and reporting sections of the product.

Recipient groups are created and populated with email addresses through a simple CSV or XLS file import wizard. The groups are normally based on how our customers currently measure IT security metrics.

Creating Different Scenarios

Changing user behavior is the core goal of the PhishMe product. Administrators can utilize different methods of training for your recipients. These scenarios can be developed from our pre-built, customizable templates or from scratch based on the current training requirements.

PhishMe provides three core types of scenarios based upon the latest strategies and techniques utilized by hackers, with many prebuilt themes in each major type:

  • DATA ENTRY: These scenarios focus on enticing users to enter in sensitive information such as a username and password, that would give a hacker access to secure systems within your organization. These scenarios utilize a three step process mirrorimng actual attacks in order to educate users:
    1. A customized email is created and sent by the Administrator that entices a recipient to click on an embedded link.
    2. The link forwards the user to a customized landing page that simulates an internal corporate page and attempts to convince the user to enter some piece of critical data, such as user name and password. The page can be a basic page created from scratch, or the PhishMe site scraping feature can be utilized to quickly edit an existing page based on one of your existing websites.
    3. Immediately after the user enters data, they are informed that this was a spear phishing simulation and they are transitioned directly into a training message selected and customized by the administrator.
  • CLICK ONLY: These scenarios involve a two-step process with an email that urges the recipient to click on the embedded link. Hackers often utilize this approach to either unleash a virus or malware on an organization or to drop a tracking cookie on the machine that can send the hackers sensitive internal data.

    Like data entry, administrators can customize a preset theme to create the bait for the scenario, or build one from scratch. An email is created that urges the recipient to click on the embedded link. Once clicked, the recipient is forwarded to the selected training materials.

    Many of our customers use this type of scenario to help users learn to dissect the underlying URL inside the email. PhishMe provides some highly sophisticated DNS features to replicate real-world tactics, which helps demonstrate to the user what to look for when examining a URL.

    At the most basic level, the underlying URL can be an IP address, either plain numerical or concealed in octal or hexadecimal code. PhishMe can also provide more sophisticated URL’s replicating the organizations domain and putting it in front of one of the many domains PhishMe has registered for use on such mock exercises. We can also assist customers in setting up appropriate DNS information so that they can register specific domains that are related to their brand for these scenarios.

  • ATTACHMENT:The third type of scenario PhishMe lets you build is one that emulates receiving an attachment that appears to be a legitimate file. Such attachments are used by hackers to get malware onto the recipient's system. In a PhishMe mock exercise, the attachment obviously does not contain malware, but actually contains the specific training message for the exercise. Once again, the scenario starts with a customized email, and can be built from scratch or based on one of our many pre-built themes.

    • Accessing Training Materials

    If you have specific policy or educational materials inside the organization and they are not Internet-accessible, you can redirect the users to the training materials. You can also customize any of our educational messages for the scenario.

    With the visual editor, inserting your logo, adapting color schemes and altering the message is extraordinarily simple. We also have an interactive multi-question game for a more light-hearted approach to the training materials.

    As the scenarios run, PhishMe collects information on individual responses and activities. Our reporting module provides you with visibility on activity in real time. This includes an overall understanding of the number and percentage of recipients that fall for the scam as well as detailed results by individual.

    We are able to identify the recipient’s location and their browsing environment. We also provide graphical overviews as well as detailed results, all of which can help understand how different parts of the organization respond to the scenarios and help to target scenarios appropriately in the future.

    PhishMe reporting module

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    PhishMe lets you easily evaluate results over time. With our trend graphing, you can select specific scenario results and see progress in the recipient groups over time or compare performance across organizational groups. For more information, please look at our detailed reporting page.

    NEXT: Attachment Based Scenarios >>

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