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LadetraGibbsReducingPhishingRisksThroughCybersecurityAwarenessTraining.docx

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Reducing Phishing Risks Through Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Ladetra Gibbs

Purdue University Global

October 16, 2026

Abstract

Famous war general Sun Tzu once stated that knowing your enemy is crucial in handing them a defeat. This is why, to address phishing in healthcare, the field needs to introduce lessons on cybersecurity awareness. This will ensure that it is able to identify threats and address them before they become a serious problem. Ongoing training is crucial to increasing the effectiveness of training in reducing the risk associated with the phenomenon. However, this endeavor is not devoid of challenges, which include a lack of employee participation, support from senior management, and a lack of realistic simulations. However, this does not negate the need for training in achieving reduced phishing risks in the field.

Reducing Phishing Risks Through Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Contemporary society is defined by technology. Almost every facet of our lives requires technology to function. With the use of this technology comes malicious parties who try to leverage technology to cause harm and create avenues of gain from this harm. This is especially true in healthcare, where patient information is akin to digital gold and can be of great benefit to these malicious actors. Employees in the field are now great targets for phishing attacks, where malicious parties utilize deceptive messages through media such as social media and emails that contain links that grant access to them. This opens the door for malicious parties to access healthcare data and use it to the harm of the owners of the data. This is why cybersecurity awareness is vital. It helps to equip healthcare employees with ways to best avoid phishing attacks. The analysis of how cybersecurity awareness training impacts the success of phishing attacks targeting employees in healthcare organizations will be discussed in detail.

Phishing Threats in Healthcare Organizations

There are a myriad of ways phishing is often used by malicious parties. The first is the use of deceptive emails and links. This is where a person receives an email that has seductive messaging to manipulate them into clicking a particular link (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025). Another is that they speak to the person and convince them to share passwords or sensitive information. The reason they are targeted is that the staff have access to this information and use technology to do so (Rizzoni et al., 2022).

The potential consequences of successful phishing attacks are often harmful. The first is that parties without authorization gain access to patient data. With this data, they can sell it to parties who wish to take control of people's identities (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025). The confidential information has several uses in the dark areas of technology, which they can use for criminal activities. Phishing attacks can also disrupt healthcare operations and make providing care difficult as the team tries to fix the issue, which could lead to the stalling of crucial technology that healthcare workers rely on (Rizzoni et al., 2022).

Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Purpose of Employee Cybersecurity Training

The aim of this training is to teach employees how phishing scams work and how they can avoid being victims of them. The employees will possess knowledge of how to identify suspicious messages and report them to the IT department so that they can be addressed (Carreiro et al., 2024). The employees can also be taught how best to safely handle potentially successful phishing attempts, along with reinforcing the need for employees to take ownership of the cybersecurity needs of the organization.

Impact of Training on Employee Behavior

The intended impact of this endeavor is to equip the trainees to make better decisions when they encounter phishing attempts (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025). This includes how to detect them and handle them. With knowledge of the harm that phishing has, the employees will be better equipped to report cybersecurity threats, and this will result in the reduction of risky employee behaviors such as accessing malicious sites that harvest data such as email and answering emails from unknown and untrustworthy senders (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025).

Factors Affecting Training Effectiveness

One of the major factors affecting the training’s effectiveness is the frequency and consistency of training. Healthcare is notorious for being understaffed, which means that many of its employees are overworked and do not have time for extracurriculars, no matter how crucial they may be (Carreiro et al., 2024). This could affect the consistency of the training. This could also affect engagement from employees, as they could be too exhausted to even care about the training.

Another challenge is the difficulty in simulating phishing. There could be a lack of resources for this endeavor, as funding for many healthcare activities is often very scarce (Nelson, 2025). This could be tied to another potential challenge, which is the lack of support from the leadership with regard to funding and continued support after the initial training (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025).

Challenges and Limitations

One of the challenges associated with this endeavor is employees becoming less attentive to training. The nature of training is often repetitive, and this can result in them becoming bored or struggling to focus. These employees are also very overworked, and fatigue could also contribute to this phenomenon (Carreiro et al., 2024). In addition, there are also differences in the level of knowledge. Some employees could be very aware of cybersecurity threats, while others could lack any knowledge of them. This could affect classes, as the knowledgeable group could take over the discussion and hinder learning for the rest (Carreiro et al., 2024).

There is also the challenge of constantly changing phishing techniques. Technology is constantly evolving, and new techniques are emerging every day, with the most recent one being the use of AI and its various tools to further convince the victim during an attack. This could mean that what is being trained is rendered irrelevant after a few months (Nelson, 2025). There is also the challenge of eliminating human error, as humans are prone to err and there is a chance this can be exploited by malicious parties.

Improving Cybersecurity Awareness in Healthcare

To aptly address the challenge of phishing, there needs to be an overhaul in how training is done. For one, there is the need for ongoing training rather than it being one-time. This will allow for stakeholders in healthcare to be aware of the many new technologies that could be used to harm them through phishing (Carreiro et al., 2024). There also needs to be training based on realism. Theory must meet practice, with feedback being given by both trainers and trainees. Overall, the field needs to shift from blaming employees in a phishing attack toward appreciating reported cases of phishing when they happen.

Conclusion

Knowledge is power. There is power that comes when employees are aware of the dangers that come with phishing and all it entails. The benefits of knowing about phishing can help prevent instances of the phenomenon happening (Challacombe & McElhiney, 2025). However, with technology constantly evolving, it is vital that healthcare invests in continuous training to increase employee awareness of new threats and to allow them to achieve the field’s broader organizational cybersecurity practices.

References

Carreiro, A., Silva, C., & Antunes, M. (2024). The use of gamification on cybersecurity awareness of healthcare professionals. Procedia Computer Science, 239, 526–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2024.06.202

Challacombe, D. J., & McElhiney, E. N. (2025). Phishing susceptibility among healthcare workers: The impact of awareness, email type, and location. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning, 18(1), 4–15. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijac.v18i1.51671

Nelson, N. (2025, July 1). We’ve all been wrong: Phishing training doesn’t work. Dark Reading. https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint-security/phishing-training-doesnt-work

Rizzoni, F., Magalini, S., Casaroli, A., Mari, P., Dixon, M., & Coventry, L. (2022). Phishing simulation exercise in a large hospital: A case study. Digital Health, 8, Article 20552076221081716. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221081716