Federal agencies are obligated under 5 C.F.R. § 930.301 to deliver security awareness training both at onboarding and on a recurring basis, and this introductory course is designed to fulfill that mandate outright rather than to supplement something else that does. The curriculum spans the complete landscape of contemporary social engineering: alongside phishing, spear-phishing, whaling, and business email compromise, it treats SMS-based attacks, voice-based attacks including AI-generated voice deepfakes, QR code exploitation, pretexting, tailgating, badge cloning, and USB drop attacks.
The training also links social engineering awareness with insider threat warning signs, given that the two categories flow through overlapping reporting pathways. Participants examine six to eight true-to-life artifacts — emails, text messages, and voicemail transcripts — some genuine and some hostile, and render a judgment on each. The immediate-feedback answer key devotes most of its explanation to the borderline examples, since that's precisely where actual breaches take root.
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Courses that are regularly updated based on feedback and industry developments, ensuring versions are mapped to federal competencies.
The instructor was wonderful and so knowledgeable. The course materials were extremely relevant to what my job is. I feel like I can be better because of this class.
— 2025 student
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Attend this course live online or as self-paced training. Engage with expert instructors, ask questions, and get feedback on your exercises and projects.
Get the same interactivity and access to the instructor as in-person students. There are no extra fees and we’ll work with you to ensure your remote setup is perfect.
Learn at your own pace with pre-recorded video lessons and hands-on exercises. Work through the material on your schedule with access to course content and resources.
Our instructors are industry experts and experienced educators, driven to help you succeed.
Upon completion of this course, you’ll receive an official certificate testifying to your mastery of the curriculum. We’ll send you a link where you can download your certificate, share it online with your friends, post it to your professional network on LinkedIn, and view all your earned certificates. Congratulations on your achievement!
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We offer a single free retake of the class within a year.
You can also access recordings of each session in your student portal within one business day of the session’s end. Recordings are available for one month after the session.
Since 1921, Graduate School USA has partnered with over 125 federal agencies and trained more than one million federal employees. Led by instructors with deep, real-world knowledge of federal regulations, policies, and practices, our private group programs are practical, mission-driven, and tailored to your agency’s objectives. We offer expertise across key federal domains—including human resources, financial management, acquisition and contracting, leadership, and more—to deliver training where and how your team needs it.
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