Phishing Simulation

Phishing simulation that turns clicks into action

Because the strongest defense starts with people who know better

A phishing simulation is a controlled security awareness exercise in which employees receive realistic, harmless emails designed to mimic credential-harvesting, malware-delivery, or pretexting lures, so organisations can measure susceptibility and validate awareness training effectiveness. Unlike a red team assessment, which tests the full attack chain across technical and human controls, a phishing simulation focuses only on the human layer. Swarmnetics conducts phishing simulations through Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) and CREST Registered Penetration Tester (CRT) certified consultants.

When phishing susceptibility becomes business risk

See how people respond when it counts

In February 2024, attackers used stolen credentials to access a Change Healthcare Citrix remote access portal that did not have multi-factor authentication. The compromise disrupted healthcare claims processing across the United States, and UnitedHealth later said the incident affected approximately 190 million people. A phishing simulation would have identified employee susceptibility to a phishing email designed to harvest credentials before attackers gained their first foothold.

A phishing simulation gives security teams documented evidence of user behaviour to support training decisions, strengthen a broader security awareness programme, and help train your employees against evolving phishing threats. Campaign results can also be broken down by department, role, and behaviour type, giving management a clearer basis for targeted awareness investment and evidence of programme effectiveness for board and regulatory reporting.

Measuring your people the way attackers do

Behavior tracked. Risk reduced.

Swarmnetics begins with a planning session to understand your organisation’s phishing awareness maturity, past training, and the attack patterns most relevant to your environment. That context shapes scenario design: simulated phishing emails can range from broad campaigns for baseline measurement to targeted phishing aimed at higher-risk roles with personalised lures. Each message is written to trigger a specific response, such as urgency, curiosity, fear, or reward, and to simulate phishing scenarios that reflect real-world attacker behaviour.

GoPhish, an open-source phishing framework, supports the assessment phase. Emails are scheduled by day, time zone, and audience segment to produce realistic results, with sending domains built to resemble your organisation’s domain or a known consumer brand, depending on the agreed scenario. Each landing page closely mirrors the target site. The platform captures opens, clicks, visits, and credentials submitted in real time, giving your team measurable data on which groups are most susceptible, which behaviours need remediation, and whether repeat campaigns show improvement over time.

Yes, we are CREST accredited

Our core team is based in Singapore and consists of CREST certified penetration testers who are also Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) certified. The team has delivered numerous penetration testing projects for customers in Singapore and other locations, from large multinational enterprises to small and medium business, and across various industries.

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Inside the human attack surface

What gets tested

A Swarmnetics phishing simulation can cover the following across your employee population:

General phishing resilience — susceptibility to broad, non-targeted email lures
Spear phishing resilience — susceptibility to role-specific scenarios
Credential-harvesting behaviour — rate of username and password submission on fake credential pages
Click rate — proportion of employees who click simulated phishing links
Attachment interaction — response to emails carrying simulated malicious files
Reporting behaviour — rate at which employees report suspicious emails to the security team
Department and role segmentation — results broken down by business unit and role type
Awareness programme gaps — variance between completed training and actual behaviour under test
Multi-wave campaign tracking — change in susceptibility across successive phishing tests

FAQ

A phishing simulation measures how employees respond to suspicious emails, including whether they click links, submit credentials, or report the message. A red team assessment is broader and covert: it combines social engineering with technical compromise to reach a defined objective. If your goal is to measure employee susceptibility specifically, a phishing simulation is the better starting point.

Swarmnetics measures susceptibility across your employee population using controlled phishing scenarios delivered by email. The campaign tracks who clicks links, who submits credentials on a fake page, who interacts with simulated attachments, and who reports the message to your security team. Results are then broken down by department and role to show where additional awareness work is needed and where a training program should focus after each simulated phishing attack.

Your staff receive simulated phishing emails without prior warning, which produces a more realistic measure of behaviour. Swarmnetics briefs the security team and relevant internal stakeholders beforehand so they can manage escalations during the campaign. Pre-warned exercises usually understate actual human risk.

A successful real-world phishing attempt can yield valid corporate credentials within minutes. From there, an attacker may gain access to email, move laterally to internal systems, escalate privileges, and exfiltrate sensitive data before unusual activity is detected. Business email compromise, ransomware, and reportable data breaches are all well-documented outcomes of untested employee susceptibility.

A phishing simulation from Swarmnetics produces a draft report for your review, followed by a final report upon acceptance. The report includes an executive summary, a detailed employee click rates, credential submission rates, and reporting behaviour analysis across the simulated phishing campaign, and specific recommendations for strengthening your security controls and processes. Campaign metrics are broken down by department and role, enabling targeted awareness training. After you have addressed the findings, Swarmnetics is available to discuss remediation priorities and support implementation planning.

A phishing simulation is relevant to any organisation that wants to measure and improve employee resilience to social engineering attacks. It is particularly valuable for organisations subject to regulatory, contractual, or industry security requirements, which requires validation of their security controls effectiveness through realistic adversarial testing. Swarmnetics recommends a phishing simulation for organisations that have completed foundational security assessments and are ready to test their controls and response capabilities against realistic threats.

The duration of a phishing simulation depends on the number of target users, the number of campaign waves, and the complexity of the phishing scenarios. A typical phishing simulation campaign runs for one to two weeks for the campaign phase, followed by an initial report within five business days for your review.

A phishing simulation directly supports compliance with applicable regulatory, contractual, or industry security obligations to demonstrate that employees are trained and tested against social engineering threats, It provides documented evidence of security awareness programme effectiveness and human risk management that regulators and auditors may request.

Every phishing simulation follows a three-phase process. In the planning phase, Swarmnetics agrees the objectives, scenarios, and schedule with your team. In the assessment phase, our consultants design and execute customised phishing campaigns targeting employees, with real-time response tracking to measure response and reporting behaviour. In the reporting phase, we deliver a draft report for review and a final report with specific, prioritised recommendations.

All Swarmnetics adversarial emulation engagements are conducted by our Singapore-based team of security consultants holding the Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) and CREST Registered Penetration Tester (CRT) credentials. Swarmnetics has been delivering technical security assessments to organisations across Singapore since 2015 and serves as a trusted VAPT partner for leading enterprises across technology, telecommunications, and professional services.