The 17 best security awareness games for employees in 2026

Training your employees is the most impactful thing you can do to prevent hacks and data breaches. But old-school e-learning (a.k.a. death-by-powerpoint) is putting your employees to sleep.

That’s why cyber security awareness games are on the rise. By adding gamification to training, the aim is to get employees engaged and teach them about modern cyber threats actively and playfully.

There are a ton of different types of games on the market, from crossword puzzles to digital escape rooms.

We’ve put together a list of the best cyber security awareness games to help you pick the solution that fits your organization best.

Top 17 cyber security awareness games for businesses

1. Guardey
2. Counterintelligence Trivia Twirl
3. The Weakest Link
4. Deepspace Danger
5. Targeted Attack: The Game
6. Cybersecurity Escape Room
7. Cyber Awareness Challenge 2024
8. Backdoors and Breaches
9. Riskio
10. 40 short quizzes by Proprofs
11. Hacktale
    
12. Jigsaw
13. CSI: Phishing
14. Google’s Space Shelter
15. OWASP Cornucopia
16. Elevate Security
17. CyberStart

1. Guardey: Duolingo for security awareness

Guardey uses gamification to make security awareness training fun. Users take on weekly micro-challenges that take up to 3 minutes to complete. During these challenges, they learn about a wide variety of topics, including phishing, device security, CEO fraud, password security, and more.

Here are some of the gamification tactics that Guardey uses to keep users engaged every week:

• Weekly challenges: Users can score extra points when they hit a streak
• Storytelling: During the game, users protect their fictional organization against cyber threats
• Achievements: Users can collect badges by getting good scores or taking on a high number of challenges
• Leaderboard: A company-wide leaderboard boosts friendly competition among colleagues
• Native mobile app: Users can play Guardey from anywhere on their phone, which is great for frontline workers

Pros

• Weekly micro-challenges that take 3 minutes to complete
• Simulates real business repercussions (loss of money and reputation)
• Completely gamified with a leaderboard, compelling storyline, achievements, and more
• Real-time insights and monthly reports to prove compliance with ISO 27001, NIS2 and more
• The ability to add training content about your own specific security policies

Cons

• It’s not free, but is affordable and offers a 14-day trial

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2. Counterintelligence Trivia Twirl

In this trivia twirl, you get to spin the wheel like way back in the day. Once you’ve landed on a category, you get a set of multiple-choice questions about it. The questions are of high quality, but the categories don’t cover all the modern cyber threats. Also, the entire game can be played within 20 minutes — which doesn’t make this a solution for the long term, but more like a nice way to freshen up your knowledge once a year.

Aside from being the ability to spin the wheel — which is a nice touch — there are no significant gamification elements to engage users.

Pros:

• It’s free
• Spinning the wheel is a nice touch
• The questions are challenging

Cons:

• Very limited gamification elements
• Not a long-term solution
• Not all cyber threats are covered

3. The weakest link

The weakest link is a game created by IS Decisions. It’s a straightforward game with tough questions about the right topics. It takes a while to finish, but won’t last you for longer than an hour in total. That means it’s nice to freshen up your team’s knowledge every year or so, but not a solution that stimulates lasting behavior change.

A strong element of this game is the face that you get immediate feedback after each question — whether you answer right or wrong. This gives the user the chance to immediately learn from a mistake or understand why they were right. The feedback is elaborate and well-written.

Aside from that, the gaming elements are somewhat limited.

Pros:

• It’s free
• Instant feedback
• The questions are challenging

Cons:

• Limited gamification elements
• Not a long-term solution

📚 Read more: These are the best phishing games

4. Deepspace Danger

The following cyber security awareness game for employees was created by Infosec: Deepspace Danger. The game takes place in outer space and is introduced by long videos animated videos. The animations are impressive but a little long-winded too.

While your spacecraft is hit by a meteor, your colleague needs to leave to repair the hole that it made to prevent any further oxygen leakage. You are left alone to look after ‘Pat’, the computer that contains personal data for every being in the solar system.

After every bit of video, you get a multiple-choice question. It’s an interesting way to learn and well put together, but it makes for a somewhat passive learning experience after a while.

The outer space theme is creative, but it doesn’t relate directly to real-life organizations. So we’re not sure how effective it is to create lasting behavior change.

Pros:

• The animations look great
• You get direct feedback in video format

Cons:

• The outer space story arch is unrelatable
• The videos are well-crafted, but a bit long-winded
• Pricing is unclear

5. Targeted Attack

Targeted Attacks by Trend Micro is a game that looks like it was created in Hollywood. Just like Deepspace Danger, it is based on a lot of video material that takes you through a story. In this case, it’s about an actual business, which is a big plus. The acting is surprisingly good too. The background music will have you thinking you’re in the middle of a James Bond movie.

An extra gamification element that we appreciate is the fact you get a cyber security budget at the beginning of the game. This budget is represented by the red dots in the top-left corner of your screen.

The videos are long-winded and time-consuming. Even though the acting is good, you tend to skip through it. We expect this is especially the case once your employees need to do this. The ‘skip section’ gets you right to the next question, but then you might miss some of the context from the video.

The questions seem to be focused on cybersecurity professionals. During the game, you play as a CISO character. This means the game isn’t exactly suitable for the entire organization.

The game can only be played once, but depending on the choices you make throughout, the scenarios can change. However, once you’ve finally played it and got to a happy ending, it’s no longer useful to play it again.

Pros:

• The game is free
• Extremely high production value
• You get direct feedback in video format
• Relatable storyline for businesses

Cons:

• Made specially for cyber security professionals
• The videos are well-crafted, but a bit long-winded
• It’s not a long-term training solution

6. Cybersecurity Escape Room

Who doesn’t love a good escape room? That’s why Living Security decided to build an escape room to train cyber security awareness. In the game, you and your teammates solve cyber puzzles. If you do it right and faster than the other team, you win the game. Note: this is not a physical escape room, but a digital one.

There is no free trial so you have to request a demo to learn more about the inner workings of this game. But here are our pros and cons looking from the outside in:

Pros

• Collaboration with your colleagues
• A strong competitive element increases engagement

Cons

• Need to request a demo to see the game
• No pricing information
• The teamwork element requires planning and is time-consuming

7. Cyber Awareness Challenge 2024

The Cyber Awareness Challenge was created by the US Department of Defense. The game has a nostalgic look (Windows 98-ish). It’s built on top of animated videos and takes you through a wide range of topics, such as social engineering, malicious code, and removable media. Especially for a challenge made for 2024, it’s interesting how there is no content about AI to be found.

The game is a little difficult to navigate and the videos that explain everything are extremely long-winded. This makes for a slow learning experience that is time-consuming for your employees.

Pros

• It’s free
• There is a wide range of topics
• The storyline is based on an actual business

Cons

• The videos are very long-winded
• The design is outdated

📚 Read more: These are the best data privacy quizzes

8. Backdoors and Breaches

After covering digital options only so far, it’s time for an analog game. This card game contains 52 cards that help you set up incident response exercises. In total, there are 3840 incident scenarios.

Users earn tactics that cyber criminals use and the tools and methods that they need to maintain cyber security.

It was made for cyber security teams to play together and keep each other on their toes. However, due to the level of the challenges, it’s not suitable to train the security awareness of your entire organization.

Pros

• Affordable
• Huge amount of possible incident scenarios
• Useful for cyber security experts

Cons

• Not made for regular employees
• Time-consuming
• High complexity

9. Riskio

Riskio is another tabletop game that was designed to boost cyber security awareness for a wide audience, spanning from non-technical individuals to IT experts.

To play this game, you need between 3 to 5 players, one of them being a cyber security expert to lead you through it. It’s a great way to do team building and improve your cyber security chops at the same time.

Unless you have a lot of spare time during working hours (and who of us ever do), it’s a bit too time-consuming to play this game regularly. But if you decide to do it every once in a while (say 6 months), it’s a good way to freshen up your security knowledge.

Pros

• Affordable
• Boosts team spirit
• Made for all skill levels

Cons

• Time-consuming
• You need at least one cyber security expert to play
• Not a long-term solution for lasting behavior change

10. 40 short quizzes by Proprofs

If you’re into quizzes, ProProfs has 40+ cyber security tests waiting for you to be played. The ones we’ve tried out (not all of them, we’ll admit), were pretty good, but it depends on which one you pick.

ProProfs is a tool that enables its users to build quizzes, meaning the 40 quizzes you see on their page could be made by anybody.

However, if you’re looking for a quick quiz for a one-time event, you may find yourself a nice free option amongst Proprofs’ list.

Pros

• Lots of different quizzes to choose from
• User-generated, from different fields
• Free

Cons

• Unclear if the content has been checked on quality
• Not for organizations, but useful for one-time usage
• No reporting

📚 Read more: The best compliance quizzes for employees

11. Hacktale

Hacktale is a security awareness training game built for (up-and-coming) cyber security professionals. You start the game in a meeting where the team finds out about the website being hacked. Your lovely, yet firm, CEO tells you to get it fixed immediately.

It’s a long-winded game and the cartoons are a bit outdated. Besides that, you’re not challenged. You only have to click through the story, but are not once asked to answer questions or solve problems.

We wouldn’t suggest this game, even though the content itself seems to be of good quality.

Pros

• Free

Cons

• Made for cyber sec professionals
• Outdated animations
• Slow storytelling

📚 Read more: These are the best social engineering quizzes

12. Jigsaw

Phishing is the biggest cyber threat there is. That’s why many organizations like to regularly emphasize the importance of being able to recognize and report phishing. The Jigsaw quiz is completely focused on phishing.

First of all, we appreciate the good looking design of this quiz. Many games look like they were created in the mid-90’s, which doesn’t make for a pleasant experience. Also, the questions are tough and challenge the user. After each question, you get clear feedback, which is also helpful.

The only problem with this quiz? It’s too short. With only 8 questions, it can serve as a fun way to remind your employees of the importance of phishing. But it’s obviously not suitable to be a long-term training solution.

Pros

• Free to use
• No need to sign up
• Beautifully designed

Cons

• Only focused on phishing, ignoring other cyber threats
• Only works as a refresher

13. CSI: Phishing

An important aspect of gamification is using storytelling to make a dry topic engaging. That’s what CSI:Phishing seems to be doing quite well. In this security awareness game, you take on the role of an investigator. Right, as if you’re a character in CSI.

The organization that employs has been breached and it’s on you to figure out how this came to be. To figure this out, you get access to all the important accounts of your organization. You get to check through the email inboxes, social media accounts, and so on. In these inboxes, you get to learn which messages contain phishing and which don’t.

There’s no way to try out this game before you buy. You’ll need to request a demo to learn more about pricing and gameplay.

Pros:

• Focus on storytelling

Cons

• No transparent pricing
• No free trial

14. Google’s Space Shelter

Leave it up to Google to create an interactive game that is beautifully designed. This is by far the best looking game in this entire list, including incredible sound design that takes you on a journey.

In the game, you take on the role of an astronaut (you even get to pick out your own astronaut outfit before you begin). In space, you will need to steer safe from cyber threats that may harm your safety.

You start off by answering a few simple questions, such as the one that can be seen above. This helps to establish a base level. After that, you find yourself on a spaceship. During different missions, you learn about different security awareness, such as phishing and password security.

The game is free to play and doesn’t require you to register. It’s not a long-term training solution for organizations, but can definitely serve as a nice way to introduce the topic among your team members.

Pros:

• Beautifully designed as an actual game
• Good questions to teach the basics
• Free to play

Cons:

• Not created for long-term training purposes
• Can come off a little childish for some people

15. OWASP Cornucopia

The Cornucopia game was created especially for development teams who aim to build secure applications. The game works especially well for web application teams that use the Agile methodology. Cornucopia was developed to be relevant for the exact issues that website app and mobile app developers deal with on a daily basis.

Instead of most other gamified solutions, this game is actually an old-school card game — which we’re all for. Especially if you and your team regularly work from the office, there’s nothing better than a board game to hit two birds with one stone: teambuilding and learning.

Pros:

• Free to download
• Especially created for developers

Cons

• Not useful for remote teams

16. Elevate Security: Employee Risk Reduction Platform

Elevate Security takes a different approach to security awareness games by personalizing training based on employee risk. Instead of offering the same experience to everyone, Elevate analyzes behaviors and tailors gamified challenges to the user’s weak spots.

For example, if someone is prone to clicking phishing emails, the system serves them more phishing-related scenarios. If another employee struggles with password security, they’ll get gamified modules around that. This keeps the training relevant and prevents employees from zoning out.

Pros

• Personalized gamified training per employee risk profile

• Wide range of security topics

• Great for enterprises that want measurable impact

Cons

• Not free; enterprise pricing applies

• Less playful than some of the more “game-like” options

17. CyberStart

CyberStart is an advanced gamified platform originally designed to inspire students to pursue cybersecurity careers, but it’s also used by organizations for upskilling staff. The platform is structured as a massive online adventure game where users solve puzzles, hack challenges, and incident response tasks.

It’s highly engaging for tech-savvy employees who want more depth than basic phishing or password games. However, for general staff, it may be too technical.

Pros

• Massive library of challenges and puzzles

• Great for technical staff and cybersecurity upskilling

• Adventure-game format keeps motivation high

Cons

• Not suitable for non-technical employees

• Time-consuming if used as the only awareness method

What makes a security awareness game effective?

Security awareness games are gaining popularity, but how do you decide on which one to pick? When trying out options from the list above, keep the following aspects in mind.

Multiple gamification elements

Make sure the game you pick is more than just a quiz. The more gamification elements are included, such as a leaderboard, badges, and story arcs, the more engaging and effective the game is.

Recurring challenges

To establish behavior change, your team needs to be trained regularly. Often, training only happens once a year. After a week or two, most of the information has been long forgotten. That’s why you need to seek out a game that offers regular challenges to build up security knowledge slowly over time.

Realistic story arcs

Most games are built on a story arc. In the examples above, there are story arcs based on sports, space and even on a circus. But when the story arc is actually relatable to the situation of the organization and the employee who plays the game, it becomes way more effective. The game should make them think about situations that can or have occurred during their work.

Short and sweet

Attention spans are short and schedules are full. Don’t expect your employees to engage in regular training that takes them more than 10 minutes at a time. This may force them to play the game during their break or even after work. Try to find a game that offers regular gameplay that takes 5 minutes or less.

Direct feedback

What is lacking in a lot of security awareness games is direct feedback. Often, users get to answer a bunch of quiz questions and get their score at the end. The only thing this teaches users is what their level of security knowledge is, but not what they need to learn. This is why there should always be direct feedback after you do things right or wrong in the game.

Wide range of topics

Many games are focused on a few topics. Often, phishing gets the most attention, simply because it’s the most prevalent cyber risk out there. However, hackers are constantly developing new ways to attack companies. And your employees need to be aware of all of them to stay safe. Here’s just a small grab of all the other topics that should be covered in detail:

• Smishing
• CEO fraud
• Updating software
• Safe passwords
• Two-factor authentication
• Remote work
• Removable media
• Malware
• Ransomware

Conclusion

There is a wide range of security awareness games on the market. By browsing through the list above, you’ll learn which solution fits your organization best. Make sure to keep in mind what your goal for the training is.

For a security awareness game that aims for lasting behavior change among employees, consider using Guardey. It offers a complete program that covers all modern security threats and comes with a set of gamification elements that keeps your team engaged.