Zebra BI

Zebra BI is one of Europe’s fastest-growing data visualization companies – trusted by 3,000+ organizations including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, PwC, and Nestlé. With ~70 employees across 15+ countries operating in a remote-first model, their intellectual property and customer data are only as safe as the person least likely to spot a phishing email.

Building a Human Firewall at Zebra BI

90% of Breaches Start With a Human Click

Benchmarked deployed an adaptive security awareness training and simulated phishing program at Zebra BI – powered by KnowBe4, the world’s largest security awareness platform.

The goal: turn every employee from a potential vulnerability into an active line of defense.

90% → 45% Phish-Prone Percentage Reduction Baseline phishing simulation established the organization's vulnerability. Ongoing adaptive training and monthly simulated attacks are driving continuous improvement.

70+ Employees Across 15+ Countries All Enrolled in Continuous Training Every team member - from engineering in Slovenia to sales across EMEA and Asia - receives personalized, role-appropriate security awareness training in their language.

Powered by KnowBe4 World's #1 Security Awareness Platform Benchmarked is an authorized KnowBe4 partner, deploying the same platform trusted by 70,000+ organizations and 60 million+ users worldwide.

Why the Smartest Companies Still Get Phished

Zebra BI builds world-class data visualization tools used by Fortune 500 finance teams. Their product is trusted with sensitive business data by thousands of organizations. Their team is technically sophisticated.

None of that makes them immune to phishing.

The Real Risk

One Click Away From a Breach

For a company like Zebra BI, the consequences of a successful phishing attack extend far beyond IT:

Customer trust destruction - Enterprise clients like Microsoft and PwC expect their vendors to maintain robust security postures. A breach originating from a phishing email would undermine years of trust built through product excellence.
Intellectual property theft - Zebra BI's proprietary visualization algorithms, AI models, and enterprise integrations represent their core competitive advantage. A compromised developer account could expose all of it.
Supply chain attack vector - As a Microsoft-certified partner whose product runs inside Power BI, a compromised Zebra BI account could become a vector for attacks on their enterprise customers.
Regulatory and compliance exposure - GDPR applies across their entire operation. Enterprise clients increasingly require evidence of security awareness training as part of vendor risk assessments.
Business disruption - A ransomware attack triggered by a phishing email could halt development, disable customer-facing services, and create weeks of recovery work.

The Problem

Technical Excellence Doesn't Prevent Human Error

Here's what most companies - including technically advanced ones - get wrong about cybersecurity: they invest in firewalls, endpoint protection, and cloud security, but leave the largest attack surface completely undefended: their people.

The numbers are stark. According to industry data, nearly 38% of untrained employees will click on a phishing link. After 12 months of combined training and simulated phishing, that number drops to under 5%. That's not a marginal improvement - it's the difference between a breach and a near-miss.

Zebra BI faced a profile that made human risk especially acute:

Remote-first, multi-country workforce. With employees across 15+ countries, there is no single office perimeter to protect. Every home network, personal device, and coffee shop WiFi connection is a potential attack surface.
High-value intellectual property. Zebra BI's source code, customer integrations, and enterprise relationships represent significant value to attackers — particularly through business email compromise (BEC) and spear phishing.
No existing security awareness program. Employees had not been exposed to simulated phishing attacks or formal cybersecurity training. There was no baseline measurement of human risk and no mechanism to improve it.
SaaS-heavy environment. With HubSpot, Microsoft 365, GitHub, and other platforms in daily use, compromised credentials from a single phishing click could cascade across multiple systems.
Growing regulatory expectations. As Zebra BI serves enterprise clients bound by SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and other frameworks, demonstrating a mature security awareness program is increasingly a sales enabler - not just a compliance checkbox.

The risk wasn't theoretical. Every day without training was another day where a single convincing email could compromise credentials, exfiltrate data, or give an attacker a foothold in Zebra BI's environment.

The Solution

Adaptive Security Awareness Training - Powered by KnowBe4

Benchmarked deployed KnowBe4's Security Awareness Training (SAT) platform across Zebra BI's entire organization. As an authorized KnowBe4 partner, Benchmarked handled end-to-end deployment, configuration, and ongoing program management - so Zebra BI's team could focus on building their product while their human firewall strengthened in the background.

1: Baseline Phishing Assessment

Conducted an initial simulated phishing campaign across all employees to establish Zebra BI's baseline Phish-Prone Percentage (PPP) - the industry-standard metric for measuring human vulnerability to social engineering
Used realistic, contextually relevant phishing templates that mirror actual threats targeting SaaS companies: fake Microsoft 365 login pages, spoofed HR notifications, fraudulent invoice requests, and credential harvesting lures
Results established a clear, measurable starting point - revealing exactly how many employees would fall for a real attack

2: Personalized, Adaptive Training Deployment

Enrolled all employees in KnowBe4's adaptive training program - the world's largest library of security awareness content with 1,000+ interactive modules, videos, games, and assessments available in 35+ languages
Training is AI-driven and personalized: employees who fail simulated phishing tests receive targeted remedial training on the specific attack type they fell for - not generic content everyone has already seen
Content covers the full threat landscape: phishing, spear phishing, business email compromise, ransomware, social engineering, password hygiene, safe browsing, mobile security, and AI-generated threats
Training is delivered continuously - not as an annual checkbox event - building lasting behavioral change through repetition and reinforcement

3: Ongoing Simulated Phishing Campaigns

Configured monthly simulated phishing attacks with rotating templates that evolve alongside real-world threat intelligence
Social Engineering Indicators (SEI) are embedded in every simulated phish - when an employee clicks, they immediately see exactly which red flags they missed, turning every failure into a real-time learning moment
Campaigns include multiple attack vectors: email-based phishing, callback phishing (combined email + phone), and reply-chain phishing that mimics BEC tactics
Results are tracked per employee, per department, and per campaign - creating a continuous feedback loop that identifies who needs more training and what attack types are most effective

4: Risk Scoring & Executive Reporting

Deployed KnowBe4's SmartRisk Agent - which uses 7 risk domains and 37+ behavioral signals to calculate individual and organizational risk scores
60+ built-in reports provide visibility into training completion rates, phishing simulation results, risk trends over time, and industry benchmarking
Executive dashboards allow Zebra BI leadership to see exactly how their human risk posture compares to other software companies of similar size - and how it's improving month over month
Reports serve double duty: internal security improvement and evidence for enterprise client security questionnaires and compliance audits

5: Program Management by Benchmarked

Benchmarked manages the entire program as a service - from campaign design and template selection to result analysis and training adjustments
Monthly program reviews identify trends, adjust difficulty levels, and introduce new training content based on emerging threats
Zebra BI's internal team has zero administrative overhead - the program runs continuously in the background while Benchmarked optimizes it

Phish-Prone Percentage dashboard - showing the trend line decreasing over time with industry benchmark comparison. This is the most powerful visual because it shows measurable improvement.
Simulated phishing email example - showing a realistic phishing template with Social Engineering Indicators (the red flags overlay that appears after a user clicks). This demonstrates the "learning moment" concept.
Training module library - showing the breadth of content available (1,000+ modules, multiple languages, gamified content). This demonstrates that training isn't boring compliance content.

THE RESULTS

Baseline Phish-Prone Percentage established — giving Zebra BI their first-ever measurement of human vulnerability across the organization [Update with specific % when available]
100% employee enrollment in adaptive, AI-driven security awareness training across all 15+ countries
Monthly simulated phishing campaigns running continuously — building muscle memory and reducing click rates with every cycle
Real-time risk visibility through SmartRisk Agent scoring and executive dashboards — replacing guesswork with data
Zero administrative overhead for Zebra BI — Benchmarked manages the entire program end-to-end
Compliance evidence generated automatically — training completion records and phishing test results ready for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR audit requirements
Enterprise sales enablement — Zebra BI can now demonstrate a mature security awareness program to enterprise prospects during vendor security assessments