• It should begin with an assessment of your organization's phishing risk. This helps trainers understand your team's current level of awareness and pinpoint areas where knowledge or response behaviors may be lacking. 

• A specific anti-phishing training course can then be crafted to most effectively improve the way your users recognize and handle risky emails. If your staff are already seasoned anti-phishing pros, then this might consist mainly of updating them with the latest developments in a fast-moving threat landscape. If they're less well-versed, training may have to start with the basics, like how to recognize phishing emails. 

• The final phase is evaluation. The trainers measure your level of risk after the phishing prevention training to demonstrate that you're in a better position and their work has a positive ROI for you.

We've got you covered with our phishing guide.

Does phishing training actually work?

The short answer is yes. Anti-phishing email awareness training works very well as part of a multi-layered security approach.

• First, you need to start with tech and policy barriers that make it difficult for attackers to contact your users.

• Next, you need to educate your users and make them aware of the many forms a phishing attack can take so that they will recognize one when it happens. This is where basic-level anti-phishing training comes in. Part of this also involves communicating with users about how to report a phishing attempt - and what to do if they accidentally clicked on a link.

• After that, you need to boost your organization's resiliency once a phishing attempt succeeds, mitigating or eliminating the harm it can do. This is where advanced anti-phishing training comes in.

• Finally, you must make sure you have the people and resources necessary to respond to reports of incidents quickly.

Huntress' anti-phishing training is part of our wider Managed Security Awareness Training (SAT). It can be taken individually or as part of a larger training program. It's unique in that our training system is built not just to keep your users engaged and attentive, but also to make life easier for your admins with fully-managed campaigns, robust reporting, and easy onboarding. Speaking of onboarding, it takes only minutes thanks to our integrated SSO and SCIM capabilities, and the completion rates of our training program are industry-leading.

See it in action: think like an attacker

Why does most security awareness training fail? Recorded live at RSAC 2026, Huntress Principle Product Manager, Dima Kumets shows how thinking like a hacker—through real-threat-intel simulations and hands-on smishing exercises—turns employees into a genuine line of defense.

We divide the training into four key parts:

Training episodes are built for engagement and real-world relevance

Our phishing awareness training begins with professionally crafted video episodes that break down real phishing techniques and tradecraft. Designed by cybersecurity experts and brought to life by our Emmy-winning animators, these episodes help employees understand how phishing works, from business email compromise and credential harvesting to more advanced tactics like AI-generated messages and deepfakes. Each episode is short, engaging, and grounded in real threat behavior.

Simulated phishing campaigns

Huntress runs simulated phishing campaigns using scenarios built by our Security Operations Center (SOC). These simulations reflect the latest phishing tactics our threat researchers see across millions of endpoints and identities. This makes them an accurate and timely representation of what users are likely to encounter in the wild. The goal is to build instinctive recognition through realistic exposure, without compromising user trust or safety.

Phishing defense coaching

If a learner clicks on a simulated phishing message, they're automatically enrolled in a personalized, just-in-time coaching session. In this micro-training, a Huntress Threat Researcher walks them through the exact phishing email they interacted with, highlighting red flags, tactics used, and how to spot similar threats in the future. 

Encourage reporting

Finally, we train your users to report suspicious messages consistently and conscientiously, instead of simply ignoring them. Creating a culture of proactive reporting strengthens your ability to respond faster and helps reinforce a layered approach to phishing defense. 

Huntress SAT runs realistic phishing simulations and teaches your people practical detection strategies through engaging, personally relevant scenarios. By making sure that we provide an anti-phishing training experience that your people actually enjoy, we make sure that they engage deeply with its messages. By making it easy for your admins to implement, we keep costs and disruptions down, too. 

Learn more about Huntress's user-friendly and engaging platform.