No matching order
The recipient cannot connect the tracking number, sender, destination, or timing to an expected business delivery.
Delivery Phishing Awareness
How to Recognize and Report Delivery Phishing
Delivery phishing imitates a courier, postal service, supplier, or internal mailroom to prompt a payment, sign-in, download, callback, or disclosure.
Use this guide to turn the threat into a clear employee decision, a safe practice scenario, and a reporting step your organization can support.
Plain-English definition • Warning signs • Safe simulation ideas • Reporting practice
01Understand the threat
Delivery Phishing: a practical definition
Delivery phishing imitates a courier, postal service, supplier, or internal mailroom to prompt a payment, sign-in, download, callback, or disclosure.
High message volume and mixed personal and business deliveries can make the lure feel routine. The safe response is to match the notice to an expected order or use the carrier's known service independently.
Source: CISA Phishing Guidance
02Recognition clues
Warning signs employees can check in a delivery phishing message
No single clue proves that a message is malicious. Teach employees to combine the request, sender, business context, destination, and available verification route before acting.
Small urgent fee
The message requests customs, redelivery, address, or holding payment through an unfamiliar page.
Account or file request
A simple delivery notice unexpectedly requires credentials, identity documents, software, or an attachment.
03Safe response
Move from suspicion to a supported next step
| Moment | Employee action | Program preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Before acting | Check the approved purchasing record or open the carrier's known website or application independently using a trusted tracking number. | Publish the authentic contact, application, or reporting route somewhere employees can reach without using the message. |
| When uncertain | Pause the request and report it through the approved channel with enough context for review. | Explain what the response team needs and how employees will know that their report was received. |
| After an interaction | Stop, contact the responsible team promptly, and describe the action taken without hiding the mistake. | Provide a well-known response route and avoid communications that discourage early reporting. |
Source: NIST: Recognizing, verifying, and reporting phishing
04Practice safely
Delivery Phishing simulation and discussion ideas
Choose one learning objective per exercise. Use fictional people, organizations, accounts, payments, documents, and events, and test the reporting route before sending to employees.
Fictional missed delivery
Ask employees to verify an invented shipment through the known purchasing or mailroom process.
Small-fee request
Discuss why a minor payment still requires an expected order and approved payment route.
Internal mailroom notice
Practice contacting the known facilities or reception team rather than using an unfamiliar message link.
05Campaign workflow
Build the exercise around a decision employees can repeat
- 1
Define the behavior
Write down the delivery phishing clue being practiced, the expected action, the authorized audience, and the owner of follow-up.
- 2
Confirm the real process
Test the independent verification route, message-reporting option, response handoff, and employee support path from a representative account.
- 3
Pilot the scenario
Check delivery, links, landing content, accessibility, event records, automated inspection, stop conditions, and the explanation employees will receive.
- 4
Review in context
Reconcile intended recipients, successful deliveries, unique employee events, verified reports, response handling, and completed follow-up before drawing conclusions.
Source: NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1: Building a Cybersecurity and Privacy Learning Program
06Useful measurement
Evaluate recognition, reporting, and the surrounding process
Record actual counts and denominators for delivery, unique recipient events, reports, and follow-up. Separate automated email inspection and repeat events where the available evidence supports doing so.
A delivery phishing exercise samples one scenario under one set of conditions. It does not establish an employee's intent, overall security awareness, or likelihood of responding the same way to a real attack.
Use findings to improve the real workflow: clearer verification instructions, easier reporting, faster response handling, better role-specific training, or a business control that reduces reliance on email alone.
Common questions
Common questions about Phishmake's features, onboarding, and support, answered to help you get started with confidence.
What if the employee is expecting a package?
They should match the sender and tracking information to the actual order and use the known carrier or purchasing route rather than relying on the message.
Are small delivery fees low risk?
A small fee can lead to payment-card or identity collection. The amount does not remove the need to verify the delivery.
Can delivery phishing be used in a phishing simulation?
It can be practiced when the scenario is authorized, proportionate, and tied to a real reporting or verification process. Use fictional carriers, orders, tracking details, addresses, and fees. Do not interfere with real shipments or imitate an active customer or employee delivery problem.
How should delivery phishing simulation results be measured?
Review successful delivery, unique employee events, reports, response handling, and completed follow-up. Include scenario difficulty and operating context, and do not treat a click or report as a complete measure of employee risk.
Sources & further reading
Published by Phishmake · Updated
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Turn delivery phishing awareness into a repeatable response.
Use Phishmake to run controlled employee simulations, review campaign activity, assign relevant training, and keep follow-up records in one workflow.