Case Study: MESA lowers its Phish-prone Percentage from 52% to 8.6% and saves nearly seven weeks a year with KnowBe4
Key results
The challenge
MESA, a critical-infrastructure company working in cathodic protection and pipeline integrity, found through baseline testing that around 52% of employees were clicking simulated phishing links and entering personal information. Reported suspicious emails had to be reviewed individually by the IT team through the ticketing system, creating a heavy manual workload.
The solution
Beginning in 2018, MESA deployed KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training, then added PhishER in mid-2021 with the Phish Alert Button, PhishML, and PhishRIP to automatically analyze and quarantine reported messages.
“PhishRIP is an enormous time saver, and efficient in shutting down threats quickly.”
SSSarfraz ShaikhCIO/CISO, MESA
The results, in context
MESA reports its Phish-prone Percentage dropped from around 52% in 2018 to 8.6% about five years later. Over one month users reported 507 suspicious messages, of which PhishER automatically resolved 92 without IT involvement, and the IT team saved a minimum of about 23 hours per month—nearly seven weeks annually.