KnowBe4 is a security awareness and compliance training and simulated social engineering product. It is used by organizations worldwide to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk. The product includes a comprehensive suite of awareness and compliance training, real-time user coaching, AI-powered simulated social engineering, crowdsourced anti-phishing defense and an AI suite that enhances human risk management through personalized training and automation. With…
$0.95
per month (billed annually) per seat
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training (formerly ThreatSim from Wombat Security) is a cloud-based training platform that simulates threat scenarios (e.g. phishing) and also provides assessment testing developed by Wombat Technologies, which was acquired by Proofpoint in March 2018.
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training and Proofpoint Security Awareness are both security awareness training software designed to train and test users on defending against social engineering attacks such as phishing. Both software options are most popular with larger enterprises, likely because as staff sizes increase, it becomes more difficult to train staff without a dedicated tool.
Features
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training and Proofpoint Security Awareness both provide essential security awareness features, but they also have some unique features that set them apart from each other.
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training provides over 2,000 phishing templates, allowing businesses to safely test their staff’s vulnerability to social engineering attacks and report on the results. Social Engineering tests can also be automated using KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training’s artificial intelligence tools, which can push social engineering tests out through email, text, or voicemail.
Proofpoint Security Awareness provides detailed and customizable reporting tools that can be run after each phishing simulation campaign. Businesses can use Proofpoint Security Awareness reporting features to see where there are vulnerabilities in their organization. Proofpoint Security Awareness also provides a simple to use interface for creating phishing simulations and generating reports.
Limitations
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training and Proofpoint Security Awareness both help businesses to defend their organization against social engineering attacks, but they also have some limitations that are important to consider.
KnowBe4 Security Awareness includes tools for testing users on social engineering attacks, but its reporting features are more limited than the detailed reports businesses can generate with Proofpoint Security Awareness. Additionally, while KnowBe4 provides a variety of email templates, many uses find they need some customizing to be presentable as social engineering tests.
Proofpoint Security Awareness does not include significant automation tools, so if your organization wants to run tests automatically, KnowBe4 Security Awareness may be a better choice. Additionally, while the interface for creating tests and reports is straightforward with Proofpoint Security Awareness, its interface for managing large amounts of users is less flexible. If your business makes frequent staffing changes, software with better user management may be preferred.
Pricing
Pricing for KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training is dependent on the number of users, as well as the feature needs of the organization. Pricing starts as low as $8.00 per user per year, but can reach as high as $29.50 per user per year.
Pricing for Proofpoint Security Awareness depends on the size of the business in question. Organizations can reach out to the vendor for a detailed quote.
Features
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training
8.8
Ratings
3% above category average
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
9.0
Ratings
5% above category average
Single sign-on capability
9.60 Ratings
9.00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions
8.00 Ratings
9.00 Ratings
Security Awareness Training
Comparison of Security Awareness Training features of Product A and Product B
I don't have any frame of reference for comparison, but the training that I have used has proved impactful for my staff. Since starting KnowBe4 training, we've seen a great increase in the number of phishing attempts, but also a great increase in the number of attempts that have been recognized by staff, and we have thus not been the victim of phishing or other cyberattact vectors
I think that Proofpoint is the best product on the market for Security Awareness Training. They make it easy, they have taken all the guess work out of it. You are supplied with everything you need to have a successful program and you don't have to be a "teacher" to do this. They have taken all of the guess work out of it.
The report phish Outlook add-in button has had a positive influence on our users. We have many users regularly reporting suspect phish emails.
The templates for the phish campaigns are very up to date, using real life recent phishing attacks. This makes our phishing campaigns much more realistic.
The training modules from PSAT are very effective and useful with our LMS system.
Campaign settings are overwhelming and non-intuitive
While the domains available for sending phishing emails are numerous, they are still often obviously fake
Certain features are locked away behind paid addons, when they should be incorporated in the base tool/licence, e.g. PhishER. It's fine that, for example, Compliance+ is an added feature, but PhishER is practically integral to the task KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training performs
The platform provides options for many different reports (with some customization options), however, there are reports that I would want that are not available.
Adding new staff (we have a lot of turn-over) into an existing training plan can be cumbersome for the system administrator. Although End-User Sync can be set-up to "add" new users to the system, the new users still need to manually be added to the assignments and sent past assignments to complete. (NOTE: this was made more difficult because of our decision to implement a training plan the way we did).
Some of the ThreatSim campaigns (simulated phishing or malicious attachment emails) will only work if you are using their PhishAlarm plug-in (add-on button for Outlook, etc. for users to easily report suspected threats). Our users access email by iPhones, Android, iPads, PCs, and Macs. PhishAlarm cannot be used for all of these platforms.
I chose 8 because Microsoft has a version of software bundled in Azure that may fulfill our needs. If this software does not measure up then we will be continuing with Knowbe4. They keep their offerings fresh so training is not redundant this is important when asking for engagement from employees
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.
The training videos we have access to are high quality, and provide a wide variety. The Inside Man videos has a cult following within our organization, and has driven a much greater interest in security awareness. And KB4's willingness to negotiate pricing for us as a nonprofit has been very valuable to us as well.
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
There have only been a handful of outages in the 2 years we have had the product. Even during those instances, parts of the system were still operational
Pages load quickly, filter/sort quickly, and don't slow down or freeze. Everything is smooth and very easy to use. There are a places in the UI where you can forget how to get there, but other than that everything is great. We have had no issues using any part of the website.
Tech prod support is great! I did have to ask for a new customer success rep, needed a more experienced person to match my 12 years of experience running Cybersec training programs. Would suggest that more matching of rep level of knowledge to client level knowledge would help.
I have never had any issues with receiving support and have always had my questions answered in a timely manner. When we do have suggestions, the support has been ready to step in and provide advice or take our suggestions seriously. But normally, there aren't any issues that come up when using this product.
confusing question. I inherited this application so I didnt get any formal training other than the person who was leaving. The CSM provided some later on when I asked in a zoom call
The implementation went really well and KnowBe4 was there the whole time on setup to make sure things were setup correctly. The only thing we had to figure out on our own was to script users automatically being added to security groups. So that when they sync to knowBe4 from AD they are placed into the same/correct groups.
KnowBe4 offered a significantly more favorable cost-benefit ratio compared to other solutions. Its seamless integration with our existing infrastructure—particularly Active Directory and email systems—was the most compatible with our operational and security requirements.
The "Managed Service" (a dedicated ProofPoint Account Rep c/w weekly status calls) significantly reduces the resource demand on the area within your company managing the program. The KnowBe4 Platform does all the same stuff (Training Modules, Reports, ThreatSim Tools), but you (or your staff) need to do considerably more work to manage the Overall Program. The uplift in cost for this service is minimal.
The product scales greatly. As long as you upgrade the license to support the number of users you are needing, adding in those new users is easy. Also getting those users set up with trainings/campaigns is very easy as well
There is really no way one can make all the needed trainings with in house resources anymore! The cost for this would be way way more than that of any platform!
There is no way to even calculate the damage a company would suffer in case of a cybersecurity breach! So the cost for the use of the KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training platform if minimal compared to that of a possible breach!
The cost of creating content for security awareness training is no longer realistic for a company. This is really no option, and it is in no way comparable to the cost of access to the training material available in the KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training platform. Also the training content needs to be constantly updated!
I don't think there are hard and fast numbers when it comes to Security Awareness ROI, as it would be next to impossible to come up with any defined metrics.
Phishing campaigns vary in their effectiveness, what I've found is that there is always something that will trigger your employees to click. Finding what that is for your company can help you train everyone to see the red flags.
