How Exposed Is Your Business to Phishing?
Discover how exposed your business is to phishing and why continuous training is essential to building lasting resilience against evolving threats.
There are two common ways SMB and mid-market organisations approach phishing risk. Some assume their people are aware enough to spot an obvious scam. Others run training once a year, tick the box, and move on.
Both approaches miss the same thing: phishing risk is always there, and the attacks keep changing.
We analysed a year of phishing behaviour across 123,692 employees. One finding stood out: people are vulnerable before any training has taken place.
Your phishing risk exists today
You can see it on the very first simulation a person receives, before training has influenced how they respond.
On that first test, 4.14% clicked the link and 1.57% entered their credentials. In a 500-person business, that is up to eight people handing over their login details to a single phishing email.
That is the baseline. It is not a sign of a weak training programme, because there is no programme yet. It shows what can happen when a convincing email reaches people who are not expecting it.
If you do nothing, that exposure stays unmanaged until a real attack arrives.
Why once-a-year training doesn't manage the risk
A single training session can feel like the problem has been solved. People join and leave, so a session held in January never reaches someone who starts in March. Attacks change, so what people learned to spot last year may not help when a different type of attack lands this year. And skills fade when they are not used.
An annual programme sets a baseline, then leaves it to erode for eleven months. It creates the impression that the risk is being managed, while the exposure underneath keeps changing.
Why managing phishing risk means regular training
Most people already know that phishing exists. The challenge is recognising and resisting an attack when it arrives.
That takes practice.
In our data, organisations whose people became harder to phish over the year were those running continual, realistic simulations rather than relying on a single annual session. Regular simulations give employees repeated opportunities to recognise suspicious emails in context.
The risk is present every day, so the response needs to be continuous too.
The aim is not to overload people. Testing often enough, and realistically enough, is what turns spotting a suspicious email into a habit rather than something they were told about once.
Start by knowing your exposure
Phishing risk is not something you remove with a one-off training session. It is something you manage because it is always there.
The first step is understanding your starting point. The next is running a programme that keeps pace with the risk.
Download the full Phishing Behaviour Report 2026 to see how behaviour changes across a 12-month programme, and what separates organisations building lasting resilience.
Want to see how continuous, adaptive simulations keep your people sharp as threats change? Email contact@pistachioapp.com to book a 15-minute demo.
We believe in a learn-by-doing approach over snooze-worthy videos.
Instead, Pistachio tailors real-world scenarios so your team can build their cyber skills in a safe environment.
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Ready to reduce your human risk? Book your demo today.
“We lacked confidence that employees would recognise today’s phishing threats or respond correctly. Since using the Pistachio platform, they are more attentive and proactive in identifying potential risks. The solution is easy to manage, quick to implement, and highly effective.
“The platform is easy to implement and provides clear insights into employee phishing awareness. Its bite-sized learning encourages participation, saves administration time, and allows us to focus more on real threat detection.”
“We were looking for a practical way to improve cybersecurity awareness across the organization. Pistachio made training simple and engaging, and we’ve seen a noticeable improvement in employee awareness with minimal effort.”
“Pistachio removed the burden of planning campaigns, collecting data, and evaluating results. The program challenges each employee at their own level and provides clear, simple reporting. Pistachio has streamlined our awareness training and strengthened our organization’s cybersecurity.”
“Our goal was to help employees better recognize phishing emails and avoid malicious links. Pistachio made this easy and engaging, and we’ve seen a clear improvement in detection, fewer clicks on phishing links, and reduced data disclosure. With minimal ongoing maintenance, it’s an effective and low-effort solution.”
“Within weeks, Presence had flagged several incidents that could have otherwise been missed, including employees forwarding company data to personal accounts during offboarding. The alerts are reliable and actionable, so we've built a full investigation process around them. Although I was skeptical at first, the value was obvious almost immediately.”
“Pistachio has reduced our manual workload to zero with its automated phishing simulations and in‑box delivery of scenario‑based trainings. This has allowed our team to dedicate time to other important security initiatives while Pistachio handles our Security Awareness program seamlessly.”
“Presence automatically detects suspicious behaviour and gives us the visibility we need without constant manual oversight. Within the first few weeks we were already seeing alerts that would have otherwise gone unnoticed as the system learns what is usual and unusual behaviour for our environment.”
“Before Pistachio, security awareness was something we could only offer to a few customers. Today it’s part of every managed service we deliver, and we haven’t had to grow the team to make that happen.”
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