Safeguard 14.2: train workforce members to recognize social engineering attacks requirement means you must run a role-appropriate training program that teaches workers how to spot, resist, and report social engineering attempts (email, phone, SMS, chat, in-person), and you must be able to prove the training occurred and is operating as designed. Build it as an auditable control with defined scope, cadence, completion tracking, and reporting.

Key takeaways:

• Train everyone who can be targeted, with extra depth for high-risk roles and privileged access.
• Operationalize 14.2 as a control: documented design, repeatable delivery, tracked completion, and measurable reporting behavior.
• Evidence wins audits: keep curriculum, rosters, completion logs, exceptions, and follow-up actions in one place.

Social engineering is a control-failure multiplier: it bypasses technical defenses by targeting human behavior, then turns one click or one phone call into credential theft, payment fraud, data exfiltration, or privileged access. CIS Safeguard 14.2 sits inside Security Awareness and Skills Training and focuses specifically on training workforce members to recognize social engineering attacks ¹.

For a CCO, Compliance Officer, or GRC lead, the operational question is simple: can you demonstrate that your workforce is trained to recognize common social engineering patterns, knows the required response path, and actually uses it? Auditors rarely accept “we did annual training” without proof of coverage, job relevance, and follow-through.

This page translates Safeguard 14.2 into a requirement you can implement quickly: who must be in scope, what training content must cover, how to run it as a recurring control, what evidence to retain, and where teams usually get stuck during assessment. The goal is practical readiness: fewer successful lures, faster reporting, and clean audit evidence mapped to CIS v8 Safeguard 14.2 ¹.

Safeguard 14.2: train workforce members to recognize social engineering attacks requirement (CIS Controls v8)

Regulatory text

Framework requirement (excerpt): “CIS Controls v8 safeguard 14.2 implementation expectation (Train Workforce Members to Recognize Social Engineering Attacks).” ¹

Operator interpretation (what you must do):

• Provide training that teaches workforce members how to recognize social engineering across channels (phishing, vishing, smishing, chat/social platforms, in-person pretexting).
• Make it actionable: workers must know the expected response (how to verify, how to refuse, how to report).
• Prove operation: you need documented control operation and recurring evidence capture mapped to 14.2 ¹.

Practical compliance standard: if you cannot show who was trained, on what content, and what happened when suspicious activity was reported, you do not have an auditable 14.2 control. Keep the program tight and measurable.

Plain-English interpretation of the requirement

You are required to teach your workforce how social engineers operate and how to respond safely. “Recognize” in audit terms means:

• People can identify common tactics (urgency, authority pressure, unusual payment requests, credential prompts, MFA-push fatigue, lookalike domains).
• People know the correct next step (reporting channel, verification steps, escalation path).
• The organization can show the training was delivered, completed, and maintained as a recurring control mapped to Safeguard 14.2 ¹.

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

Entity scope: Enterprises and technology organizations adopting CIS Controls v8 ¹.

Operational scope (who should be trained):

• All workforce members with corporate identity accounts (employees, contractors, temps, interns).
• High-risk groups (targeted more often or with higher blast radius):
  • Finance/AP/AR, payroll, procurement (payment fraud and invoice manipulation).
  • IT/help desk, identity admins, SOC (reset scams, privilege escalation).
  • Executives and assistants (spearphishing, wire fraud pretexting).
  • Customer support and sales (data disclosure, account takeover attempts).
• Third parties in your environment: if third-party users have access to your systems or data, include them in scope or enforce equivalent training via contract and onboarding gates. Treat them as part of your “workforce” for this control’s operational outcome.

Systems and workflows in scope:

• Email, collaboration tools, ticketing, CRM, ERP/AP systems, IAM and MFA workflows, remote access, and any process where identity verification is required.

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

1) Define the control and owner

Create a control statement for 14.2 that is short and testable:

• Control objective: workforce recognizes and reports social engineering attempts.
• Control owner: Security Awareness lead, with compliance oversight.
• Control frequency: defined by your program standard (set a cadence you can sustain and evidence).
• Population: HR roster + contractors + privileged users + relevant third-party users.

Map this control explicitly to Safeguard 14.2 and set expectations for recurring evidence capture ¹.

2) Build a minimum viable curriculum (content requirements)

Your training should include, at minimum:

• Channel-specific lures
  • Email phishing (links, attachments, QR codes, lookalike domains).
  • Phone and voicemail (vishing, fake help desk).
  • SMS (smishing).
  • Collaboration apps (Teams/Slack impersonation, malicious file shares).
  • In-person/social pretexting (tailgating, fake deliveries, badge requests).
• Tactics workers must recognize
  • Urgency, authority, secrecy, unusual process deviations, and requests to bypass controls.
  • Credential harvesting and MFA manipulation (e.g., unexpected prompts).
  • Payment and bank detail changes; gift card scams.
• Required actions
  • “Stop, verify, report”: how to verify identity using known-good channels.
  • Where to report (phish button, SOC email, hotline, ticket category).
  • What information to include in a report (header, screenshot, phone number, callback details).
  • What not to do (don’t forward to coworkers, don’t click to “test,” don’t engage).

Keep it operational. A worker should finish training knowing exactly what to do in the next suspicious message.

3) Role-tailor training where the risk is concentrated

Create targeted modules or add-on lessons for:

• Finance and procurement: verification of payment changes, invoice validation, dual-approval reminders.
• IT/help desk: identity proofing for reset requests, out-of-band verification, “VIP exception” refusal scripts.
• Executives: spearphishing patterns and secure delegation.
• Developers/engineering: social engineering for code access, secrets, and repository invitations.

Audit expectation: you can explain why specialized roles receive specialized content, and you can show their completion.

4) Deliver training through enforceable gates

Common delivery mechanisms (choose what fits your operating model):

• HRIS/LMS assignments tied to onboarding and job changes.
• Access gates for privileged roles (cannot receive admin access until training is complete).
• Just-in-time training prompts for risky workflows (e.g., finance wire changes), if you have the tooling.

For third parties, use contract clauses and onboarding checklists to confirm training completion or an equivalent program.

5) Create a reporting workflow that matches training

Training without an easy reporting path becomes shelfware. Operationalize:

• A single, well-known reporting method (email add-in, dedicated address, ticket type).
• A defined triage owner (SOC, IT security) and service-level expectations (internal target is fine; keep it realistic).
• Feedback loops: confirm receipt to the reporter and share sanitized lessons learned to reinforce behaviors.

6) Measure effectiveness with outcomes you can evidence

Avoid vanity metrics alone. Track:

• Completion by population and by high-risk roles.
• Reporting volume and quality (are reports actionable).
• Repeat failure patterns (themes to update training content).

If you run simulations, treat the artifacts as part of the evidence set; do not claim simulation performance proves training unless your program design links them.

7) Package evidence for assessment readiness

Build an “audit-ready folder” mapped to 14.2 with recurring exports and fixed naming. This is the recurring evidence capture expectation in practice ¹.

If you use Daydream to manage your control library, map Safeguard 14.2 to a documented control procedure and schedule evidence requests so each training cycle produces the same artifact set with less scramble at audit time ¹.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Maintain evidence that shows both design and operation:

Control design artifacts

• Security awareness and training standard (includes social engineering scope).
• Documented training curriculum outline (topics, channels, response actions).
• Role-based training matrix (which roles get which modules).
• Reporting procedure (how users report, who triages, escalation steps).

Control operation artifacts (recurring)

• Training assignment records (LMS exports; HR rosters used for population).
• Completion logs (by user, date completed, module name).
• Exception records (approved deferrals, leaves of absence, contractors without access).
• Training content versions (what learners saw during the period).
• Communications artifacts (campaign emails, intranet posts) if used as reinforcement.
• Reporting workflow evidence (ticket samples, mailbox logs) with sensitive data redacted.

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Assessors tend to probe the same fault lines:

• Scope: “Does this include contractors and third parties with access?”
• Role relevance: “Show me what finance users received versus engineers.”
• Recurrence: “How do you ensure new hires and transfers are assigned training?”
• Proof: “Provide completion evidence for the full population, not a screenshot.”
• Operational link: “What happens when a user reports a suspected phish?”
• Mapping: “Where is the explicit mapping to CIS Safeguard 14.2 and the evidence list?” ¹

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Mistake	Why it fails in audits	Fix
Training is generic security awareness, not social engineering-specific	Doesn’t meet the “recognize social engineering attacks” intent	Add dedicated social engineering module(s) with scenarios and response steps
No defined population (HR roster mismatch)	You can’t prove coverage	Reconcile HRIS roster + contractor list + privileged access list, then assign training from that list
Completion tracking is manual	Evidence gaps and inconsistent enforcement	Use LMS exports as the system of record and store snapshots each cycle
Reporting is unclear or fragmented	Workers don’t report; you can’t show operation	Standardize a single reporting path and document triage ownership
Exceptions are informal (“we’ll catch them later”)	Auditors treat this as noncompliance	Create an exception workflow with approvals and time-bounded remediation
Content isn’t updated after incidents	Training drifts away from real threats	Add a lightweight content refresh step after significant events and document the change

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases are provided in the source catalog for this requirement. That does not reduce operational risk. Social engineering is a common entry point for incidents, and assessors often treat weak awareness controls as a contributor to broader findings (e.g., access control failures, incident reporting delays, or payment fraud losses). Your best defense is an auditable program: defined scope, repeatable delivery, and strong evidence mapping to Safeguard 14.2 ¹.

A practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

The plan below uses phases as an execution scaffold. Adjust pace to your audit calendar and workforce complexity.

First 30 days (stand up the control)

• Name the control owner and approvers; document the 14.2 control statement mapped to CIS v8.
• Define population sources (HRIS, contractor management, privileged access list, third-party user list).
• Select training delivery channel (LMS) and confirm it can export assignments and completions.
• Publish the reporting path for suspected social engineering and ensure triage ownership is staffed.
• Create your “evidence folder” structure and retention expectations.

Days 31–60 (deliver and prove coverage)

• Launch baseline social engineering training for the full population.
• Roll out targeted modules to finance, IT/help desk, executives, and privileged users.
• Begin recurring evidence capture: rosters, completion exports, content versions, and exceptions.
• Test the reporting workflow end-to-end with a small internal exercise and document outcomes.

Days 61–90 (make it durable and audit-ready)

• Close gaps: chase non-completions, document exceptions, and clean up population mismatches.
• Add reinforcement communications and scenario refresh based on the most common reported lures.
• Produce a single audit packet: control narrative, mapping to 14.2, and the latest evidence set.
• If you manage controls in Daydream, schedule recurring evidence requests and owner attestations so each cycle produces consistent artifacts mapped to Safeguard 14.2 ¹.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Safeguard 14.2 require phishing simulations?

The provided excerpt focuses on training workforce members to recognize social engineering attacks ¹. Simulations can support effectiveness, but your core obligation is training plus evidence that it occurred and operates.

Who counts as “workforce members” for 14.2?

Treat anyone who can be targeted through your business processes or who has access to your systems as in scope, including contractors and relevant third-party users. If a third party cannot be trained in your LMS, require equivalent training and retain proof.

What is the minimum evidence an auditor will accept?

Keep (1) the curriculum/content, (2) the population definition method, (3) completion exports, and (4) exceptions with approvals. Also retain the reporting procedure and a small sample of redacted reports or tickets to show the process runs.

How do we handle employees on leave or contractors with short tenures?

Use an exceptions process that records the reason, approver, and the condition for closure (e.g., training due upon return or before access is granted). Auditors want to see governed exceptions, not missing records.

Our training vendor updates content automatically. How do we evidence “what was taught”?

Export or archive the module outline, version notes, or a PDF snapshot of key lessons for the period under review. Pair it with the completion logs so you can tie “who completed” to “what content existed then.”

How do we operationalize 14.2 without overwhelming the business?

Start with a tight baseline module and a single reporting path, then add role-based depth only for high-risk functions. Make completion enforcement automatic through onboarding and access workflows so managers are not chasing people manually.

Footnotes

1. CIS Controls v8; CIS Controls Navigator v8