Phishing & Cybersecurity Essentials: Staying Safe in the AI Era
Phishing attacks have gotten harder to spot, and AI just made them harder. This course teaches you how to recognize the tactics that work on people, what to do if you fall for one, and how to use AI tools without leaking data or getting manipulated.
About this course
Most people think they can spot a phishing email because of typos and awkward grammar. That was true five years ago. Today, attackers use AI to write bait that reads like a message from your actual boss, clones voices from three seconds of audio, and hides instructions inside documents you'd never suspect. The grammar rule is dead. The tactics that still work are psychological, and they haven't changed.
This course focuses on those tactics. You'll learn the four pressure levers every phishing attack relies on, whether it arrives by email, text, phone call, or QR code. You'll learn what to do in the first 30 minutes after a suspicious click, in the right order, on the right device. And you'll learn how to handle AI-specific threats that didn't exist two years ago: deepfake voice and video calls, prompt injection hiding inside documents, and the real difference between pasting something into the free version of ChatGPT versus your company's enterprise system.
The course is built for people who use computers and phones at work, not for security professionals. No technical background is required. Each lesson is short, specific, and built around what you actually do when something goes wrong, not theory about what attackers might someday try.
Details
Skills you'll learn
Phishing Recognition
Identify the four pressure tactics (urgency, authority, secrecy, off-channel switch) across email, SMS, voice, and QR-code attacks, regardless of how polished the writing looks.
Incident Response
Execute the correct first steps after a suspicious click, in the right order, including what not to do in the first 30 minutes.
Deepfake Detection
Apply the known-channel callback rule and a pre-set verification question to confirm identity when a voice or video call feels off.
Safe AI Use
Decide what data is safe to paste into a public AI tool and recognize when a document might be trying to manipulate an AI system on your behalf.
Syllabus
2 units • 4 lessons • 2 projects • 1 assessment
Learning activities
Every lesson gives you several ways to learn.
Frequently asked questions
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