Tax season phishing spikes 300% and your staff isn’t ready

Between January and April, phishing attacks targeting Arizona CPA firms spike dramatically. Attackers impersonate the IRS, the Arizona Department of Revenue, major clients, and software vendors. They know your team is working 60-70 hour weeks and making fast decisions under pressure. That’s exactly when people click things they shouldn’t.

A phishing simulation program flips this dynamic. Instead of waiting for a real attack to test your team, you send controlled phishing emails that look real, track who clicks, and provide immediate training to anyone who takes the bait.

How phishing simulations work

A phishing simulation platform sends realistic but harmless phishing emails to your staff on a regular schedule. When someone clicks a simulated phishing link, they’re immediately shown a training page explaining what they missed and how to recognize the real thing next time.

The metrics you track:

Click rate: What percentage of your staff clicked the simulated phishing link
Report rate: What percentage correctly flagged the email as suspicious
Repeat offenders: Who keeps clicking despite training
Trend over time: Is your team getting better or worse

Industry benchmarks for CPA firms show first-test click rates of 25-35%. After 6 months of regular simulations, well-trained firms get below 5%. That improvement is the difference between a firm that gets hit by BEC and one that catches it.

What to simulate

Generic phishing tests are less useful than industry-specific ones. For CPA firms, simulate:

IRS notice emails with links to “verify” PTIN information
Client emails requesting urgent wire transfers or document sharing
Thomson Reuters/Intuit emails about “critical software updates”
Arizona Department of Revenue notifications
Microsoft 365 password reset requests
DocuSign or Adobe Sign requests from unknown senders

Building the training cadence

One annual training session doesn’t work. Staff forget within weeks. The most effective cadence:

Monthly simulations throughout the year (different scenario each time)
Weekly simulations during January-April (tax season heightened awareness)
Immediate micro-training when someone clicks (30-second lesson, not a 30-minute video)
Quarterly reporting to firm leadership on trends

This cadence satisfies FTC Safeguards Rule training requirements and builds genuine muscle memory for recognizing attacks.

Getting started

Asteroid IT deploys phishing simulation and security awareness training programs for CPA firms across the Scottsdale, Gilbert, and Chandler area. We customize scenarios for accounting industry threats and track your firm’s improvement over time.

Learn more about IT support for CPA firms or call us at 480-937-7021.