SANS Security Awareness

SANS Security Awareness is the workforce training line from SANS, an institute better known for deep technical cybersecurity courses and GIAC certifications. It provides end user awareness training alongside role based training, positioned as hardening enterprise security rather than only satisfying a compliance requirement.

Coming from a practitioner training institute rather than a security software vendor changes what this is. Most awareness products are made by companies whose main business is a security platform, with training attached to it. SANS teaches security professionals for a living, so the awareness material is produced by the same organisation that writes courses on penetration testing and incident response, and by instructors who work in the field.

Role based training is the more substantive half of the offering. Awareness training for everyone necessarily aims low, whereas developers, system administrators and finance staff each face specific attacks that a general module cannot address, and finance staff in particular are targeted directly for payment fraud.

The absence of a software platform is the honest trade off. Buyers wanting integrated phishing simulation tied to their mail gateway are choosing on a different axis from those buying instructional quality.