A useful exercise to foster organic interest in peer accountability through friendly competition.

How to run the program:

1. Identify two volunteers who are peers at least from a command structure perspective within the same division or department depending on the size of your organization who are interested in competing against each other in sending a phishing attack to their functional area and see who is able to generate a higher fail rate.
2. Teach them about how a phishing campaign is created and delivered and coach them on best hook, personalization, or any other strategies you find beneficial.
3. Coach these two volunteers on rules of engagement, template constraints, and any other guidance you find necessary to help each craft an attack simulation.
4. Pair each of them with your phishing simulation project manager separate from each other so they can input their template idea.
5. Run each campaign at least a month apart from each other.
6. Record a winner based on who is able to compromise more of their target audience.
7. Publicly celebrate the winner within their functional areas such as division or department.

Important notes

Do not record the “failure users” as doing so into your remedial accountability program. Why? The last thing you need is for your friendly gamified experience to result in animosity towards the participants.

Ensure templates still fall within your regular HR rules of engagement.

Why this is impactful

Your volunteers will be more phishing aware then they ever have been by 10x, guaranteed, just by participating in this fun and engaging learning experience. Additionally, you can expect them to be peer security awareness champions moving forward.

Additionally this gives you a chance to run even more campaigns without adding burden to the perception of too many tests.

Lastly, it is so much easier to view phishing campaigns as a fun and engaging learning opportunity when it is your friends doing the “fooling” and “failing.” I guarantee you significant internal chatter about how much fun this game is and how much competition it fosters.