No harm was done.
This was a security awareness exercise designed to help employees recognize suspicious emails before real attackers can take advantage of them.
This was a security awareness exercise designed to help employees recognize suspicious emails before real attackers can take advantage of them.
You clicked a link that was part of a phishing training campaign. Real phishing emails often look like normal business messages from vendors, coworkers, banks, delivery companies, Microsoft 365, or other trusted services.
What is phishing?
Phishing is a type of cyberattack where someone tries to trick you into clicking a malicious link, opening a harmful attachment, entering your password, or sharing sensitive information.
Common warning signs
- Unexpected urgency: The message pressures you to act quickly.
- Suspicious links: The link does not match the company or service it claims to represent.
- Unusual sender address: The display name may look familiar, but the email address is wrong or slightly misspelled.
- Requests for passwords: Legitimate companies should not ask you to enter credentials through unexpected email links.
- Unexpected attachments: Be cautious with files you were not expecting, especially ZIP, HTML, ISO, EXE, or macro-enabled Office files.
- Poor grammar or odd wording: Many phishing emails contain awkward phrasing, but some are very polished.
- Too good or too alarming: Fake invoices, account holds, rebates, refunds, payroll notices, and vendor alerts are common lures.
What should you do next time?
- Pause before clicking.
- Hover over links to check the real destination.
- Verify unexpected requests through a trusted source.
- Do not enter your password after clicking an unexpected email link.
- Report suspicious emails using your company’s approved reporting process.
Remember
Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility. Taking a few extra seconds to inspect an email can prevent account compromise, ransomware, wire fraud, and data loss.
This page is for internal security awareness training only.