The below glossary will provide a description of what types of emails are in each phishing template category.

JUMP TO:A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V

A

Arabic

Phishing templates in the Arabic language.

English - Australia

Phishing templates localized for Australian end-users.

English - Austria

Phishing templates localized for Austrian end-users.

B

Banking and Finance

This category contains templates replicating popular banks and financial institutions. Also included are generic banking templates with subjects such as transaction and confirmation activity. The majority of the sender email domains for these templates are spoofing well-known organizations.

Baseline Templates

A category dedicated to revealing an accurate Phish-Prone Percentage of your organization when performing a baseline Phishing Security Test. These templates consist of both generic and organization-specific emails that could fool almost anyone. Subjects include anything from Internal IT emails spoofing your own domain, to social media activity notifications.

Business

This category contains typical communication that employees might receive.  The subjects of these emails include theoretical invoices, purchase orders, requests for information, shared files, and more. These templates typically do not spoof companies and will come from a large assortment of sender email domains.

Burmese

Phishing templates localized for Burmese end-users.

C

English - Canada

Phishing templates localized for Canadian end-users.

Chinese - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the Chinese language. These emails would be useful for any employee to review.  This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain clickable links.  You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here. 

Chinese Simplified

Phishing templates in the Chinese (Simplified) language (zh-cn).

Chinese Traditional - Hong Kong

Phishing templates in the Chinese (Traditional) language (zh-hk). Some of these templates may be localized for Hong Kong.

Chinese Traditional - Taiwan

Phishing templates in the Chinese (Traditional) language (zh-hk). Some of these templates may be localized for Taiwan.

Controversial/NSFW*OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE*

This category contains templates with controversial content that could be considered offensive or inappropriate to some organizations, but others may find these templates appropriate and helpful for use in an aggressive simulated phishing campaign.

This potentially not suitable for work (NSFW) content is hidden by default within the System Templates area (for accounts created in June 2018 and later). It can be unhidden by following the steps in this article. Once unhidden, this category can be used for effective campaigns that provoke users to click or open attachments in reaction to shocking content. 

The unpleasant truth is the bad guys do not shy away from using controversial subject matter and language to socially engineer users, and neither should we when training and strengthening our human firewall.

CPA/Business Advising Industry

This category contains templates that are typically seen in the financial advising and public accounting industries, including common exchanges between clients and advisors, or among colleagues.

Current Events

This category contains a variety of templates appropriate for current events, news, matters, occasions, etc.  Templates include anything from national headline alerts (real and fake) spoofing major news channels, to popular app downloads, to shopping discounts and coupons.

Current Event of the Month

This category will contain a single Current Events or Holiday template, hand-selected by the Content team each month, to ensure that you're getting a high-quality, timely, and relevant template. Review the Current Events and Holiday template category descriptions to understand the types of templates that may be selected for this category.

For more detail about this category, see here.

Current Event of the Week

This category will contain a single Current Events or Holiday template, hand-selected by the Content team each week, to ensure that you're getting a high-quality, timely, and relevant template. Review the Current Events and Holiday template category descriptions to understand the types of templates that may be selected for this category.

For more detail about this category, see here.

Czech

Phishing templates in the Czech language.

D

Danish

Phishing templates in the Danish language.

Data Breach

This category of Phishing Templates allows you to spear-phish users that have been part of specific data breaches. Each template spoofs a unique organization that has had a large-scale data breach incident.

Each template includes a corresponding data entry landing page, so you can test your users on not only their susceptibility to clicking a link, but also if they are prone to entering sensitive information.

This category is intended to be used in conjunction with KnowBe4's Email Exposure Check Pro (EEC Pro), but can be used in any type of phishing campaign.

See: How to Use the Data Breach Category

Dutch

Phishing templates in the Dutch language.

E

Education

This category includes education-related templates involving college and graduate matters, high school news alerts, teacher incentives, pay raises, and student loan information. The majority of these templates could apply to anyone working or involved in the education industry.

F

Finnish

Phishing templates in the Finnish language.

French - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the French language.  These emails would be useful for any employee to review.  This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links.  You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here.

French - Canada

Phishing templates localized for French Canadian end-users.

French - France

Phishing templates in the French language.

G

German - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the German language. These emails would be useful for any employee to review. This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here.

German

Phishing templates localized for German end-users.

Greek

Phishing templates localized for Greek end-users.

Government

This category contains templates spoofing state, local, and federal governments, regarding issues such as speeding tickets, court summons, jury duty, and criminal activity notifications. The sender email addresses in these templates spoof government domains.   

H

Healthcare

This category includes healthcare related templates involving insurance and coverage matters, medical files, medical bills, and appointment reminders. The majority of these templates could apply to anyone with health insurance.

Hebrew

Phishing templates in the Hebrew language.

Hindi - India

Phishing templates in Hindi language.

HIPAA Security Hints and Tips (Not PST)

This category contains general security tips for end-users in organizations who must be in compliance with HIPAA. These emails would be useful to review for any employee that deals with protected health information (PHI). This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest HIPAA security hints and tips.

Holiday

This category contains templates relevant to any upcoming holidays. Examples include coupons for Christmas shopping, sales for President’s Day, and real or fake news stories in relation to specific holidays. 

Holiday (Off-Season)

This is essentially a container for off-season Holiday templates. We do not recommend using this category in any ongoing phishing campaigns, as current holiday templates will be located in the Holiday category.

Human Resources

This category consists of topics typically handled by Human Resources departments. The majority of the sender emails in this category spoof your own domain with an “HR” mailbox name.

Hungarian

Phishing templates in the Hungarian language.

I

English - India

Phishing templates localized for Indian end-users.

Indonesian

Phishing templates in the Indonesian language.

English - Ireland

Phishing templates localized for Irish end-users.

IT

This category contains various Information Technology-themed subject matters. There are various types of templates including email account matters, anti-virus notifications, and security matters. The majority of the sender email addresses for these templates spoof well-known IT companies, and there are also some sender email addresses that spoof your own domain.

Italian - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the Italian language. These emails would be useful for any employee to review. This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here.

Italian

Phishing templates localized for Italian end-users.

J

Japanese

Phishing templates localized for Japanese end-users.

K

Korean

Phishing templates localized for Korean end-users.

L

Legal Industry

This category was created for those in the law/legal industry and many of the available templates contain legal language.

M

Mail Notifications

This category contains automated messages that users would normally receive from their mail client. The template content typically references mailbox storage, bounced or pending email alerts, and required system updates.

Malay - Malaysia

Phishing templates in the Malay language.

N

English - New Zealand

Phishing templates localized for New Zealand end-users.

Norwegian

Phishing templates localized for Norwegian end-users.

O

Online Services

This is our largest category of templates. This category contains emails from various well-known online services including shopping, entertainment, applications, financial and security services. The majority of the sender email addresses in these templates include spoofed domains of very popular websites and applications that your users will recognize.

Outdoor/Sporting Goods

This category includes templates replicating emails from well-known outdoor/sporting good distributors. The emails in this category contain announcements of store sales as well as coupons from popular manufacturers.

P

PCI Security Hints and Tips (Not PST)

This category contains general security tips for end-users in organizations who must be in compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). These emails would be useful to review for any employee who handles credit cards. This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest PCI security hints and tips.

Phishing For Sensitive Information

Templates in this category have “Phishing for Sensitive Information” landing pages assigned to them. If users click on any links in these Phishing Security Test emails, they will be redirected to a landing page which has a form on it asking the user to enter sensitive data. If the user does enter data, a failure for this action will be recorded in the system.

For more details on Phishing for Sensitive Information email templates and landing pages, click here.

Polish

Phishing templates in the Polish language.

Portuguese - Brazil

Phishing templates localized for Brazilian end-users.

Portuguese - Portugal

Phishing templates localized for Portuguese end-users.

Q

QR Code

This category contains templates including a QR code as the PST attack vector. A QR code redirects users to a website or attachment.For more information about QR code phishing, click here.

R

Real Estate Industry

This category contains templates specific to email exchanges found in the real estate industry, such as buyer closing documents and loan information.

Reply-To Only *No Links or Attachments*

The emails in this category of templates do not contain any links or attachments and will only test the user on whether or not they will reply to a phishing email. You can enable the console to track replies to Phishing Security Test emails when you set up your phishing campaign. If you enable this feature and your user replies to any of the PST emails, this will record as a failure in the console.

For more on reply-to phishing, click here.

Reported Phishes of the Week

This category consists of the top ten phishing emails reported to us by users of the Phish Alert Button. This category contains ten new emails every week. The sender domains vary in this category and include, but are not limited to, those that spoof popular companies and those that spoof your own organization domain.

For more information about the Reported Phishes of the Week, click here. 

Retired Current Events

This category consists of templates that were once popular but are no longer relevant. These templates were originally added to our Current Events category. You can use them as a starting point to create your own "Breaking News" phishing templates.

Romanian

Phishing templates in the Romanian language.

Russian

Phishing templates in the Russian language.

S

Seasonal (Non-current)

This template category contains non-current seasonal templates, such as Black Friday, Fantasy Football, and March Madness. This category holds templates that don’t fit into the Holiday category and are not timely enough to be categorized in Current Events.

English - Singapore

Phishing templates localized for Singaporean end-users.

Social Networking

This category consists of templates spoofing all types of social media sites and applications. The templates consist of subjects such as invites to join, confirmation of your account, resetting your password, and notifying you of new messages you’ve received.

English - Africa

Phishing templates localized for African end-users.

Spanish - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the Spanish language. These emails would be useful for any employee to review. This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain any links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here.

Spanish - Colombia

Phishing templates localized for Colombian end-users.

Spanish

Phishing templates in the Spanish language.

Swedish - Security Hints and Tips

This category contains general security tips in the Swedish language. These emails would be useful for any employee to review. This category is not used for Phishing Security Tests; therefore these emails do not contain clickable links. You can send these emails by setting up a separate phishing campaign consisting only of this category to keep your users up to date on the latest security hints and tips.

For more details on Security Hints and Tips campaigns, click here.

Swahili

Phishing templates in the Swahili language.

Swedish

Phishing templates in the Swedish language.

T

Thai

Phishing templates in the Thai language.

Turkish

Phishing templates in the Turkish language.

U

English - Great Britain (Banking)

This category of templates consists of banking and financial institution notifications, including security and transaction alerts, localized for users in the United Kingdom.

English - Great Britain (Current Events)

This category contains a variety of templates appropriate for current events, news, matters, occasions, etc. Templates include anything from national headline alerts (real and fake) spoofing major news channels, to popular app downloads, to shopping discounts and coupons. All current events are localized for users in the United Kingdom.

English - Great BritainThis category of templates consists of organizations and topics localized for United Kingdom users.

UkrainianPhishing templates in the Ukrainian language.

V

VietnamesePhishing templates in the Vietnamese language.