City of Daytona Beach

Moving Beyond Spam Filters

Reziqa recognizes that technology can be daunting for City of Daytona Beach staff worried about doing something wrong. Aside from using the right technology, his IT team must ensure staff are well trained so they can confidently get the most out of every tool and maintain a high security standard.

“Any fault in our technology or error from our staff could impact thousands of city residents,” Reziqa says. “It is imperative that we are aware of what we have so we can secure our systems.”

The City of Daytona Beach uses technology to their advantage, but they are fighting against a legion of cybercriminals who target a common vulnerability: the email inbox. Reziqa marvels at how quickly threats evolve and how difficult it is for a CIO to keep up.

“The trend of threats coming through email is very difficult to combat. You can’t just depend on spam filters to identify those emails,” Reziqa says.

That means they depend on its staff to make the right call about which emails to open and which links to click. It’s a big responsibility, and the city didn’t have an effective way to train users to identify phishing red flags.

When someone clicked a suspicious link, the IT team would have to engage in extensive one-on-one conversations reinforcing the city’s security policy while manually working through the many steps to remedy the situation. All actions were reactive, taking place after the user had already been compromised.

It also took a lot of time — time the team couldn’t spend fortifying the city’s defenses.

Upgrading Training with an Expansive Platform

Reziqa knew exactly how to address their email security issues. He’d had prior success implementing KnowBe4, and when he arrived at the City of Daytona Beach, it was an easy decision to onboard the platform.

“I have been a customer of KnowBe4 for at least 12 years,” Reziqa says. “KnowBe4 is, hands down, one of the best platforms to train users on emerging threats.”

He lists several KnowBe4 advantages that contributed to his past success, including:

• Simple implementation
• Well-structured content
• Ability to simulate realistic phishing attacks
• Automated, up-to-date training

KnowBe4’s Security Awareness Training incorporates threats other customers have encountered and reported. It also boasts the world’s largest library of  security awareness training content.

“A key benefit of KnowBe4 is the quality of the content, whether it is gamification, video, or the questions asked,” Reziqa says, adding that he even f inds some of the questions challenging.

The platform provides enough flexibility to customize and upload content to suit any organization’s circumstances. Previously, Reziqa’s team had difficulty knowing if all staff understood the city’s security policy. By incorporating the policy at the start of staff training, the team increased confidence that staff read it because they had a log of who accepted the policy and when.

As an extra layer of protection, the City of Daytona Beach also implemented PhishER Plus, KnowBe4’s incident response product, to automate threat detection and streamline incident response. The simplicity of PhishER’s dashboards means the team can quickly get a comprehensive view of the security landscape.

“It’s straightforward. All the information we need is available for us to make a decision and take action,” Reziqa says.

They have come to rely on the Phish Alert Button (PAB) to report emails and PhishRIP to retract them. For Reziqa, who has had to recall emails in prior roles, PhishRIP is especially valuable. Recalling emails natively in Microsoft took over half an hour, but with PhishRIP, it’s done within minutes.

“PhishRIP is so much easier. With a few clicks, you can pull that email back,” Reziqa says, adding that the time saved by this feature alone is “extremely high.” PhishER Plus has helped the IT team increase their awareness and given them more tools to respond to attacks.

“We can see where the threat’s coming from. We can see who’s opened the email and reach out to them. This would not be possible without PhishER Plus.”

Lowering the Phish-prone™ Percentage to 2%

Since implementing KnowBe4, the city’s training completion rate has grown significantly. Department heads have bought into the program and lead by example, sharing when they’ve completed the training. Staff follow suit, and it’s making a noticeable difference.