Evaluating End-User Defensive Approaches Against Phishing Using Education and Simulated Attacks in a Croatian University

This study investigates the effectiveness of two cybersecurity awareness interventions—phishing simulations and organized online training—in enhancing end-user resilience to phishing attacks in a Croatian university setting. Three controlled phishing simulations and one targeted instructional module were executed across several organizational departments. This study assesses behavioral responses, compromise rates, and statistical associations with demographic variables, including age, department, and educational background. Despite educational instruction yielding a marginally reduced number of compromised users, statistical analysis revealed no meaningful difference between the two methods. The third phishing simulation, executed over a pre-holiday timeframe, demonstrated a significantly elevated compromising rate, underscoring the influence of temporal and organizational context on employee alertness. These findings highlight the shortcomings of standalone awareness assessments and stress the necessity for ongoing, contextualized, and integrated cybersecurity training approaches. The findings offer practical guidance for developing more effective phishing defense strategies within organizational environments.