March 31, 2022

Think about what your employees need: a better training program, more immersive training, or just something to pass that annoying audit with. Then make it happen with KnowBe4!

Item: KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Verified User

Team Lead in Other

Computer & Network Security Company, 201-500 employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Software Version

Training Access Level III (Diamond)

Modules Used

Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training
KnowBe4 Training Modules (e.g. Common Threats, Creating Strong Passwords, GDPR, etc.)
The Security Awareness Company Content Library
Corporate "Custom Modules"

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My company uses KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training (and many of their privacy training modules for laws such as CPRA and GDPR) to provide employee training that meets the audited SOC 2 standards that our customer organizations expect us to meet. Our contact at KnowBe4 is very responsive to questions and requests for advice. They are also very good at making suggestions that are flexible with some of the more unique cultural aspects around training and our employees' attitudes towards it. Additionally, when we hold custom training within the organization for our own tools, it is easy to use the 'custom modules' option to upload video recordings to require those who were not present for the live training to catch up on their own time (with or without some deadline, which is optional). Finally, it is possible to run phishing email tests from within the administrative portal, which can serve as a good benchmark for our organization's email and communications security posture.

Pros and Cons

Quality Training Modules
Okta SSO
SSO Auto-User Provisioning
Phishing tests

EEC Pro "Breaches" Reporting
Dashboard and Data Customizations
"Phish Button"

Return on Investment

Annual Employee Security Training (like this) is a requirement for many higher ACV contracts
More employees (especially team managers and higher-ups) will voluntarily report phishing, whaling, and smishing attempts
Can help some employees understand the rationale behind corporate MDM/EDR software installed on corporate workstations

Support Rating

Our KnowBe4 representative has always been a very responsive person and is very willing to customize his suggestions and advice to situations that we bring to him. I feel he is a bit less enthusiastic about suggesting some of the more wild ideas we have had as formal product suggestions and personally, I think there is always more room for a product to be creative.

Key Insights

Do you think KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training's feature set?

Yes

Did KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training go as expected?

Would you buy KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training again?

Yes

Usability

The rating is, assuming, you have either used much more complex administrative panels before or you're old enough that you have a bit of wisdom. I suspect some of the youngest of today's workforce might find the administrative UI a bit old-school and difficult to make logical sense of. However, if you take it one link at a time and give yourself a day to read through their very detailed documentation, it's a very straightforward system with little room for surprises.

Likelihood to Recommend

KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training is well suited for providing educational videos to help your company's employees stay up to speed with the latest in digital security offensive and defensive tactics, including for more modern devices such as BYOD smartphones. KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training has a strong preference in its more recent selections for multi-part, longer series, which play out as "television-format dramas" (or something similar). Perhaps while some organizations and leaders in compliance and security spaces see this as something fun and worthwhile to watch, it is notable that many regular employees of an organization will want to stick with the short and sweet 'quick training' videos. These are still available, but it may take some searching to get that balance just right for your organization. I can only imagine that most competitor organizations and products have a similar limitation that requires each organization to choose the makeup of security (etc.) training materials that best suits that organization's culture.