Pharmaceutical Cyber Security Staff Training

How SoSafe helps

Solutions for your pharmaceutical cyber security risks

Training that fits beside the GxP curriculum

Cyber security in the pharmaceutical industry has to fit into a training calendar that is already full. Research, quality and production staff complete a long list of mandatory GxP and pharmacovigilance courses. SoSafe runs alongside them as a complementary programme. Lessons take one to eight minutes and build secure habits without taking over the training calendar.

Simulations that look like regulated work

Create or customise phishing simulations around lures like this, such as a supposed file from a trial site or a supplier’s certificate of analysis. Email simulations adjust difficulty and cadence to each person’s performance and risk, and SMS simulations train field staff to spot smishing.

Behaviour you can measure

A completion rate says little about whether someone would report a suspicious email tomorrow. For pharmaceutical cyber security, the Human Security Index looks at what people actually do. It combines simulation responses, reported threats and learning progress into one figure that quality, security and management can follow over the year.

SoSafe learning path with achievements beside an interactive lesson asking what to do about a QR code on a café table

Simulated phishing email in Outlook with a SoSafe hint explaining how to spot a counterfeit sender

SoSafe Human Security Index dashboard with awareness, behaviour and culture scores and suggested interventions

Training that fits beside the GxP curriculum

Cyber security in the pharmaceutical industry has to fit into a training calendar that is already full. Research, quality and production staff complete a long list of mandatory GxP and pharmacovigilance courses. SoSafe runs alongside them as a complementary programme. Lessons take one to eight minutes and build secure habits without taking over the training calendar.

Simulations that look like regulated work

Create or customise phishing simulations around lures like this, such as a supposed file from a trial site or a supplier’s certificate of analysis. Email simulations adjust difficulty and cadence to each person’s performance and risk, and SMS simulations train field staff to spot smishing.

Behaviour you can measure

A completion rate says little about whether someone would report a suspicious email tomorrow. For pharmaceutical cyber security, the Human Security Index looks at what people actually do. It combines simulation responses, reported threats and learning progress into one figure that quality, security and management can follow over the year.

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THE CHALLENGE

Where attacks on pharma and med devices companies usually begin

Research and regulatory data

In its analysis of incidents in the EU during 2025, ENISA describes a health sector threat picture shaped mainly by unauthorised access, and ransomware accounted for 26.8% of the financially motivated attacks (ENISA Threat Landscape 2026, September 2026). For a pharmaceutical company, unpublished trial results, formulations and correspondence with regulators are what such attackers are after. In June 2026, Novo Nordisk reported unauthorised access to a limited number of internal IT systems. Pseudonymised data from clinical trial participants, including health and biomarker data, was copied externally (Novo Nordisk, June 2026).

Messages that follow the regulatory calendar

Pharma teams open messages from outside the company every day: questions from authorities, documents from clinical sites and research partners, audit announcements, certificates from suppliers. Attackers copy exactly these formats because nobody can afford to ignore them. Phishing written with AI tools makes the copies harder to tell apart from the real thing.

Records that must stay trustworthy

In GMP manufacturing and in the laboratory, systems record who did what and when. An attacker who logs in with stolen credentials does more than steal data. Entries lose their reliability, and a batch release can stall until it is clear what happened. This is where pharmaceutical cyber security meets data integrity.

Confidential data in AI tools and phone calls

Study data or a formulation pasted into a public AI tool leaves the company’s control. A familiar-sounding voice on the phone asking for an urgent approval can be generated with voice cloning. Both risks start with a routine decision that someone makes in a few seconds.

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WHO GETS TRAINED

Role-based training for pharma cyber security

Research and laboratory teams

Scientists and lab staff handle unpublished results and exchange data with partners around the world. Simulations can imitate lures from supposed collaborators or file shares from unknown senders, and lessons on generative AI cover what may go into an AI tool. Staff at shared lab workstations can join without a company email address.

Clinical and pharmacovigilance teams

Clinical operations and pharmacovigilance teams have to open messages from sites, patients and healthcare professionals, often with attachments. Training helps them check a link or an attachment quickly, so that security does not get in the way of time-critical reporting.

On the production floor and in quality assurance

Build a learning path for production and quality that pairs security lessons with your own procedures. Shift operators without a company email can still enrol. Lessons explain two-factor authentication without jargon, including what to do about a login prompt nobody requested.

In the field, in management and in IT

Sales reps and medical science liaisons often read messages on their phones in the car park before the next appointment. Smishing simulations meet them there. Managers receive a shorter track built around their own responsibility for cyber risk, while IT staff with privileged access go deeper.

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How SoSafe works day-to-day

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Lessons in a few minutes

Lessons adapt to role, prior knowledge and risk profile. Assign one path to the lab and another to sales, each in units of one to eight minutes on a desktop or a phone.

Smartphone showing a short SoSafe security lesson in progress with a progress bar

From reported email to simulation

When a phishing email reaches your organisation, such as a fake request from an authority, the security team can rebuild it as a simulation in a few minutes and send it to the people it targeted.

SoSafe phishing simulation editor with a draft email imitating a supplier

A practice call in the browser

The Interactive Vishing Lesson ends with a realistic call in the browser, such as a caller from “IT support” who asks for a login code. No phone numbers are needed. It builds the habit of checking but records no failure rate.

Interactive vishing lesson showing an incoming IT support call beside the response options in the browser

One click to report

The report button sits in the email client. One click sends a suspicious message to a single triage queue, where the security team reviews all reports together and decides what needs action.

SoSafe Policy-to-Lesson view turning an uploaded policy into a security lesson

Your own rules as lessons

Upload an SOP as a PDF, such as your rule for AI tools and study data. Policy-to-Lesson drafts an editable lesson for your team to review before publishing, in languages enabled in your account.

The SoSafe report button in an email toolbar with a cursor selecting it

Evidence for audits and management

NIS2, ISO/IEC 27001 and GDPR reports come from the same data as the Human Security Index, which shows how behaviour develops across teams.

SoSafe Human Security Index dashboard with awareness, behaviour and culture scores over time

88%

knowledge retention after 12 months

90%

reduction in risky interactions

80%

reporting threats within 12 months

15 min

per week to run the full programme

Measurable impact for pharma and medtech teams

For pharmaceutical cyber security, quality and security teams need evidence that behaviour changes, not only that training took place. SoSafe is trusted by more than 6,000 organisations worldwide, and the figures below come from aggregated data across their live programmes in all sectors.

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Connected to the systems pharmaceutical companies already run

Cybersecurity in life sciences runs on many connected systems. SoSafe connects with your identity provider, your HR system for user provisioning and the collaboration tools your teams work in. If your GxP training records sit in your own learning management system, lessons can be exported there as SCORM packages.

Integrations

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Phishing simulation integration with Microsoft 365

Compliance

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GDPR Compliant

German Engineered

EU Hosted

Pharmaceutical cyber security FAQs

The biggest cyber security threats in the pharmaceutical industry are data theft, ransomware and social engineering. Across all sectors, ransomware and data breaches made up most of the financially motivated attacks ENISA recorded in 2025, and unpublished study results are a valuable target. It often starts with an email or call to one employee, so pharmaceutical cyber security depends on how people respond.

NIS2 applies to many pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. Drug manufacturing and medicinal research are highly critical sectors, medical devices and in vitro diagnostics other critical ones. A company usually falls within the scope of NIS2 from 50 employees or above €10 million in both turnover and balance sheet total. Device makers also face rules on cyber security for medical devices under the Medical Device Regulation.

Training should differ for research, clinical, production, quality and commercial teams because each group meets different attacks. Researchers spot lures from supposed partners, clinical teams check attachments from sites, production and quality staff protect the accounts behind GMP records, and field teams face smishing. Learning paths set up by department then match the pharma cyber security lessons to each group’s work.

Security awareness training supports GxP and data integrity requirements because every GMP record depends on the account behind it. With stolen credentials, a batch record or lab entry no longer traces reliably to the person who made it. The draft revision of EU GMP Annex 11 proposes recurrent security awareness training whose effectiveness is evaluated; SoSafe simulation results can feed into that evaluation.

You can avoid training fatigue by keeping pharmaceutical cyber security lessons short and relevant to each role. SoSafe lessons take one to eight minutes, adapt to what a person already knows and run as a complementary programme alongside mandatory GxP and pharmacovigilance training. People spend their time on the risks that apply to their own work.

Licensing for a pharmaceutical company with several sites and entities depends on your workforce size and selected package. Request a quote covering your sites, entities and mid-term additions.