Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications vs. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training

For cybersecurity practitioners interested in advancing their skillset in deeply technical matters, Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications offers some of the most well respected, up to date, technically challenging and comprehensive training courses out there; however, users must be very disciplined, determined and resourceful in order to make the most of the high quality content on offer since good time management is critical and "Try Harder" isn't just a motto for Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications given the content could frustrate some inexperienced users that may be pressed for time and don't have enough drive to spend learning a good amount of possibly unfamiliar but essential content and concepts

Incentivized

Perfect for regular (monthly) training of staff versus a "one and done" annual assignment on Cyber Security. Allows for a greater number of topics to be covered and for creating a "culture" of security awareness among all Staff throughout the entire company. NOT a replacement for IT Security Certifications amongst your technical staff (CISSPs & GSLCs on staff are a must have). Your Proofpoint Account Rep does most of the heavy lifting, but the program still requires "care and feeding" (resources) within your organization - preparing monthly user lists for training assignments and preparing reports for leadership on participation & progress

Incentivized

• Content is comprehensively laid out in a clear manner
• Content is regularly kept up to date with the latest techniques seen today
• Content doesn't assume too much about the reader's existing knowledge levels
• Labs are representative and designed to emulate what could happen in real life
• Certifications are well respected and widely recognised in the security industry
• Prices are not that expensive compared to other vendors etc.

Incentivized

• Proofpoint has a huge library of phishing emails to choose from. They add new examples every week.
• The training modules are fun and interactive and keep the user engaged.
• The posters, and downloadable materials are amazing and really give a great visual to support your security campaigns.
• The product is easy to use, and Proofpoint Support Staff are always available to help with any issues you have.

Incentivized

• The exams are quite hard to pass and some require a lot of hours to be spent on them which might leave some exhausted
• Some of the content can be hard to remember since there is a lot of syntax that might be intimidating to users not familiar with something similar from before
• Perhaps consider more specific, tailored courses rather than courses which cover many topics at once which might not necessarily be within the same niche
• More human to human interaction could be beneficial to prepare for the exams sometimes

Incentivized

• The lack of a user rating on "cyber risk" is proving to be an immense difficulty. As we are looking at how to better hold our employees accountable as well as provide increased learning opportunities for those who need it most, it is becoming cumbersome--especially given the fact this is starting to become the standard for Security Awareness companies. The lack of this is resulting in a manual process vs being able to automate and moderate, thus taking up time and resources, which are always at a scarcity. It can also be cumbersome to look across the tools to see how a particular user is doing, vs being able to view all of their data in one space.
• If you are a marketer, the editors for the Phishing Templates and Teachable Moments are quite frustrating. They feel out of date and clunky, as well as not featuring an auto-save, so you could lose the templates you are building. At this point, I have actually started to work in other email creation editors and learning HTML, to better customize and then moving all of the code into the editor. It has thus far proven to be less of a headache. I also do not believe the average user is working on branding their program, creating consistency for easy of navigation, and including additional resources in their teachable moments in the way we currently are. However, as more social science backgrounds continue to enter security awareness, I believe this will move towards the norm.
• Some of the reporting numbers for Simulated Phishing could be better. For example, telling me how many people acknowledged the teachable moment out of the full email campaign is less meaningful than knowing how many people acknowledged it, from those who actually triggered/were shown the teachable moment.

Incentivized

• The product is great for what we use it for
• We have a good relationship with our vendor/Proofpoint, which I believe is needed to be successful in Security Awareness and using tools like this
• The package/service as a whole is incredibly helpful
• The integrations with Proofpoint's Trap is one of the most valuable things we could do. It turns your entire email user base into members of IT security, to be on the look out to report cyber attacks, and have them pulled out of everyone's email if the email is condemed/found malicious.

Incentivized

Overall, PSAT is integral to what we do. PSAT is a helpful tool to help us improve our employees ability to recognize, report, and respond to phishing. It works for us to use a longterm partner, who is incredibly helpful/supportive, and also bringing Proofpoint's greater cybersecurity & attack intelligence into PSAT. Honestly, we are pretty happy and would make the choice to go with PSAT again (we evaluated the major players in the space via Gartner's Magic Quadrant). The team behind the products are excellent and the product of itself is both intuitive and expansive. This combination allows us to reach our 10k+ employees who are located in over 20 countries

Incentivized

Proofpoint support has always been above average. A lot of companies provide a customer service manager for your account but few have proved as connected as Proofpoint. The CSM was able to give us a good start with the product and checked in periodically. I found them always helpful with any questions and very knowledgeable about the platform.

Incentivized

Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications are very comprehensive, regularly kept up to date and, unlike some other courses out there, are quite challenging and technically demanding even for industry colleagues who've been in the field for many years; for this reason, Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications is excellent for your more senior cyber security analysts/engineers as it will enable these technical experts in your organisation to further enhance their knowledge and learn some new tricks that they can then bring back to the workplace to share with the rest of the team

Incentivized

All three products have the pros and cons. Since we use other Proofpoint products, TAP, TRAP, etc. the integration with PSAT is much better. The other products do not integrate with TRAP nearly as well as PSAT.

Incentivized

• Labs have allowed us to safely test new offensive as well as defensive techniques
• Certifications are widely recognised and allow us to showcase our team's maturity to external parties when required
• Content is very comprehensive so this lessens the need for covering the same topics in our internal knowledgebases
• The platforms that Offensive Security Cybersecurity Courses and Certifications have setup helped showcase the benefits and drive adoption of infrastructure as code in our own organisation

Incentivized

• I don't have any tangible numbers to provide, but we definitely have an increase in the number of staff reporting suspicious emails and fewer people clicking on phishing emails.
• The cost we are paying per employee (<$2 pp)is low enough that we can consider this a "benefit" we offer to our employees. The knowledge gained can also be applied to your personal life with similar threats.

Incentivized