Engineering and product
Practice repository, package, document, and collaboration decisions with fictional projects and no executable content.
For Technology and SaaS
Phishing Simulation Planning for Technology and SaaS Teams
Technology and SaaS companies connect product development, cloud infrastructure, customer support, sales, finance, vendors, and distributed teams through high-privilege digital workflows.
A responsible simulation should reinforce verification without exposing customer data, source code, secrets, production access, or real incident and vulnerability information.
Industry-specific scenarios • Safe campaign boundaries • Reporting practice • Contextual measurement
01Understand the work
Design around how technology and SaaS companies actually operate
Start with the people, systems, authority, and verification routes involved in one real workflow. The exercise should practice an action employees can take without disrupting customers, operations, safety, or real incident response.
Cloud and platform teams
Use a separately authorized privileged scope outside identity, infrastructure, monitoring, and production systems.
Customer support
Reinforce identity, tenant, escalation, and data-handling procedures without reproducing a real customer or ticket.
Sales and business teams
Practice contract, meeting, document, payment, and account requests using invented prospects and vendors.
02Choose the scenario
Use a recognizable request with a safe response
Give the scenario one learning objective and one explainable next step. Use fictional people, organizations, records, transactions, and incidents, and avoid exploiting a live problem or sensitive relationship.
Repository invitation
Ask employees to validate an invented owner, project, permissions request, and destination.
Cloud account alert
Practice reaching the authentic identity or cloud service independently.
Customer escalation
Reinforce the established support and security route using a fictional tenant and case.
Vendor access request
Ask teams to verify the provider, ticket, scope, approval, and access path before any action.
03Plan responsibly
Resolve operational questions before launch
| Consideration | Question to answer | Required preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Technical isolation | Could any message, file, link, or response reach code, cloud, identity, support, or production systems? | Use isolated infrastructure with no credentials, tokens, code, commands, downloads, agents, or production integrations. |
| Customer boundary | Could the scenario expose a real tenant, ticket, incident, vulnerability, or contract? | Invent all customer, product, case, and technical information. |
| Privileged roles | Are administrators, platform engineers, or security personnel included? | Use a separate approved scope aligned with privileged identity, ticket, change, and incident procedures. |
| Operational timing | Could delivery overlap a launch, deployment, outage, incident, disclosure, or major customer event? | Check current conditions and give engineering and security immediate stop authority. |
04Run the exercise
Move from an approved brief to useful follow-up
- 1
Define one behavior
State the request being tested, expected verification or reporting action, authorized audience, permitted data, and intended use of the findings.
- 2
Confirm the real process
Make sure employees can reach the authentic service, contact, approver, reporting tool, or escalation route before testing the behavior.
- 3
Pilot end to end
Test representative accounts, locations, shifts, devices, email controls, landing pages, event records, reports, stop conditions, and follow-up.
- 4
Brief response teams
Prepare security, IT, operations, communications, managers, and relevant providers while preserving normal handling of unrelated real reports.
- 5
Debrief and improve
Explain the expected action, provide relevant private learning, and assign every process or control improvement to an accountable owner.
Source: NIST: Building a Cybersecurity and Privacy Learning Program
05Measure responsibly
Interpret campaign activity in business context
Record intended recipients, exclusions, successful deliveries, unique recipient events, verified reports, response handling, and completed follow-up. Reconcile automated inspection and repeated events before attributing activity to employees.
Review role, privilege, employment status, time zone, device, delivery, scanner automation, scenario relevance, reports, and response handling. A simulation does not assess product security or secure-by-design maturity.
Use findings to improve real reporting, verification, identity, access, email, vendor, and support processes. A single interaction does not explain why a decision occurred and should not become an employee risk score.
Common questions
Common questions about Phishmake's features, onboarding, and support, answered to help you get started with confidence.
Can a simulation use a real vulnerability or incident?
No. Use fictional low-impact technical context. Real incidents and undisclosed vulnerabilities can trigger consequential response and expose sensitive information.
Can engineers receive repository scenarios?
Yes, within an approved isolated exercise using a fictional repository and no real credentials, source code, packages, secrets, downloads, or executable content.
Should privileged platform teams receive the workforce campaign?
Use a separately authorized scope when their tools, access, identity checks, and expected controls differ from the general workforce.
Does employee phishing training make a SaaS product secure by design?
No. Workforce practice does not replace secure product design, engineering, identity, access, vulnerability management, monitoring, incident response, and customer-protection measures.
Sources & further reading
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