Is Company Phishing Training Waste of Money? Alarming Truth About Phishing simulations and Secure Email Gateways SEG

Are Your Phishing Defenses Failing? A Better Strategy for Real Business Protection.

Many companies work hard to protect themselves from a common online danger called phishing. Phishing emails are trick messages sent by bad actors to steal information or money. To fight this, businesses usually rely on two main things: teaching their employees how to spot these fake emails and using special software called Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) to filter them out.

For a long time, we have believed this was the best way. But what if these methods are not as effective as we think? New information and studies show that both training and these security tools have serious weaknesses. This creates a difficult situation for businesses trying to stay safe. It is time to look closely at why these trusted defenses might be failing and explore a smarter path forward.

The Surprising Weakness of Phishing Training

Companies often invest in training programs that use simulated phishing attacks to teach employees what to look out for. The idea is that practice will make people better at spotting real threats. However, a major study presented at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas showed some very sobering results.

This large-scale experiment involved almost 20,000 employees and found that most phishing training has a very small impact on overall security. The findings challenge the belief that training is a primary line of defense.

Key Failures of Traditional Training

Overall effect is low

Across the board, awareness training only improved an employee’s ability to avoid a phishing attack by an average of 1.7%.

Static training can be harmful

When employees were given simple, non-interactive training like reading material or watching videos, they actually became more likely to click on malicious links. Their click rate on dangerous content increased by over 18%.

Interactive content is only slightly better

Employees who went through training with interactive exercises were about 19% less likely to click on a bad link, which is an improvement but still a modest gain.

Yearly refreshers don’t help

The study found no evidence that annual training courses improved employee performance, either right after the course or a year later.

Good fakes still fool everyone

Even the best-trained employees were tricked by well-crafted phishing emails. In these cases, they clicked on the dangerous links more than 15% of the time. A separate, large study confirmed that the difficulty of the phishing email was the biggest factor in whether someone clicked, not the training they received.

The conclusion from this research is stark: traditional training does not lead to significant, measurable improvements in how employees handle phishing emails. The problem may not be a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of attention. Some research suggests that user inattentiveness is a key reason why these attacks succeed. This means the solution isn’t just more information, but finding ways to make people slow down and think before they click.

Why Your Email Security Software Also Fails

If training is not the answer, what about the technical safeguards we have in place? Most organizations use Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) as their first line of defense. These tools are designed to scan incoming emails for threats and block them before they ever reach an employee’s inbox.

However, cybersecurity experts warn that phishing cannot be stopped by SEGs alone. Cybercriminals are highly adaptable; they study how these security systems work and develop clever ways to bypass them. According to Dr. Martin Krämer, a Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, attackers are constantly creating more sophisticated methods, forcing companies to look for new defense strategies.

How Attackers Bypass Secure Email Gateways

Time-Delayed Dangers

A common tactic is to send an email with a link that is harmless at first. The SEG scans the link, finds nothing wrong, and allows the email to pass through. Hours or even days later, the attacker activates the link, turning it into a gateway for malware or a phishing site. The initial scan is useless because the threat appeared after the fact.

Using Trusted Services as a Disguise

Attackers often hide their malicious content on legitimate, well-known platforms like Microsoft SharePoint, OneDrive, or Google Docs. SEGs are programmed to trust these domains, so they allow emails containing these links to pass without issue. The dangerous component is hidden behind a URL that appears safe.

Attacks Without Malware (Social Engineering)

Many of the most successful attacks do not rely on technical tricks like bad links or infected attachments. Instead, they use psychology. In Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, a criminal might pose as a CEO or a trusted vendor and simply ask an employee to transfer money or share sensitive data. Because there are no technical red flags for an SEG to detect, these emails sail right through.

Simple Text-Only Phishing

Some phishing emails are just plain text and imitate normal internal company communications. They might look like a simple invoice or a message from another department. With no URLs or attachments to analyze, traditional gateway solutions see these emails as harmless and deliver them to the recipient.

These methods show that the classic approach of checking an email once at the perimeter is no longer enough. Attackers think strategically and are often one step ahead of the technology designed to stop them.

Solving the Cybersecurity Dilemma

This situation presents a serious dilemma. Research shows that conventional employee training is largely ineffective. At the same time, the primary technology used to stop phishing, the SEG, is easily outsmarted by modern attack methods. It seems that both the human and technical defenses are failing. This leads to a circular argument: some say to focus on technology over training, while others say technology is failing and we need better-trained people.

The solution is not to choose one over the other, but to evolve both. A layered strategy that combines smarter technology with more effective, continuous training is the only way to build a truly resilient defense.

Solution 1: Adopt a Better Training Model

Not all training is useless. While one-time, static training fails, some studies show that training can be effective if it is adaptive, behavior-aware, and reinforced over time. One company, Hoxhunt, has shown that an adaptive training model can achieve powerful results. With this approach, the simulated phishing emails become more difficult as the employee’s skills improve.

This method keeps employees engaged and leads to real-world results.

• Companies using this model saw a 10x increase in the detection of real threats.
• After one year of continuous, adaptive training, nearly two-thirds of employees had successfully identified and reported at least one real phishing attack.

This proves that the right kind of training—one that builds skills and habits rather than just sharing information—can turn employees into a powerful part of the security solution.

Solution 2: Layer Technology with AI

A basic SEG is no longer enough. Organizations need to add a smarter layer of security that can catch the threats the gateway misses. Modern solutions often use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze emails more deeply.

Instead of just checking for known bad links or malware signatures, AI-powered systems take a “zero-trust” approach. They analyze every part of an email—the sender, the language, the technical headers, and the overall context—to determine if it can be trusted. This technology learns the normal communication patterns within a company and can spot suspicious anomalies, even in emails that have no obvious malicious components.

Solution 3: Build a Culture of Security and Response

Ultimately, technology and training must be part of a broader security culture. This means shifting the focus from prevention alone to include robust incident response. Since some phishing emails will inevitably get through, it is crucial to have a clear and simple way for employees to report them.

Furthermore, introducing simple “speed bumps” can be highly effective. One study found that small challenges that force users to interact with and inspect a URL before visiting the site significantly decreased successful phishing attempts. This approach directly combats user inattentiveness by making them slow down and focus. An effective security strategy assumes that a breach will happen and emphasizes a swift and effective response to minimize the damage.