Glossary: AutoPhish Terms Explained

Short explanations of the terms you meet in AutoPhish, in alphabetical order.

Admin – Company role that can manage campaigns, invite users and change company settings. See also Owner and User.

Anonymous Mode – Company setting for pseudonymised reporting: people appear as tracking IDs instead of e-mail addresses. Admins can switch it on; only AutoPhish support can switch it off. See "How to enable Anonymous Mode".

Authenticated scan – Security scan with Expanded coverage that signs in with a login you provide. Costs 45 credits per host.

Baseline scan – Safe check of a host's essentials. One per host in each scan period of your plan (daily, weekly or monthly) is included; further Baseline scans cost 5 credits.

Billing owner – The user who pays for the subscription that covers a company. Only the billing owner manages billing, buys credits and sees the usage per company. The billing owner can be a different person from the company owner.

Campaign – A configured phishing simulation with channel (e-mail, SMS or Quishing), target list, content, schedule and training settings.

Campaign execution (run) – One send-out of a campaign. A recurring campaign creates a new execution in every interval.

Click rate – Link clicks per message sent, in percent. Counts events, not distinct people.

Company context – Information about your company – business model, products, key people – that AutoPhish gathers from your website and uses to make simulations realistic. You can edit it in the company details.

Credit – The unit all channels and scans are paid with. All companies of a subscription share one credit pool. A simulation e-mail costs 1 credit, an SMS segment 2. See "How Credits Work – Costs, Balance and Buying More".

Deep Active scan – Security scan with active tests that may create, edit or delete records on the tested system. Requires explicit authorisation. Costs 75 credits per host.

Defense Rate – Share of simulations that did not lead to entered data: 100 % minus the rate of login attempts per message sent. With training on click, a click also counts as a failure.

DKIM – Digital signature that proves an e-mail was sent by an authorised server and not changed. See "Sender Authentication Explained: SPF, DKIM and DMARC Results".

DMARC – DNS record that tells receivers what to do with e-mails that fail SPF or DKIM, and where reports are sent.

Expanded scan – Security scan with broader discovery, ports, crawling and safe tests. Costs 30 credits per host; the only scan type that can be scheduled.

List context – Optional description of who is on a target list, for example "Accounting team". AutoPhish uses it to tailor simulations, and reports can group results by it.

Login attempt – A recipient entered data on a simulated login page. AutoPhish records that it happened and the username entered. Passwords are never stored.

Look-alike domain – A domain registered to look like yours, for example with swapped or similar-looking characters, that attackers could use for phishing. See "Look-alike Domain Monitoring and Security Alerts".

Microtraining – Short learning page shown right after a risky action, pointing out the warning signs of the message the person received. See "Microtraining and Training after a Simulation".

Owner – Every company has exactly one owner, who is always an admin. The owner can transfer ownership and cannot be removed from the company.

Quishing – Phishing with QR codes. AutoPhish sends QR codes by e-mail or provides printable posters.

Report Rate – Reported messages per message sent, in percent.

Security Score – Score from 0 to 100 in the Security Center: 100 minus points for open and accepted issues (Critical 20, High 10, Medium 3, Low 1).

Smishing – Phishing by SMS. Requires mobile numbers in the target list.

SPF – DNS record that lists the servers allowed to send e-mail for your domain.

Sprinkle – Option to send a campaign over several days: every recipient receives the message at a random time within the window.

Suspected bot activity – Opens, clicks and login attempts by e-mail security systems and link scanners. They are excluded from the figures and listed separately.

Target – A person who receives simulations, identified by e-mail address (and mobile number for SMS). A target can be in several lists.

Target list – Reusable group of targets for your campaigns. See "Create and Manage Target Lists (incl. CSV Import)".

Tracking ID – Pseudonymous ID that replaces a person's e-mail address in Anonymous Mode. The same person always has the same ID.

Training Platform – The AutoPhish Training Platform: e-learning courses hosted by AutoPhish that you can assign after a simulation.

User – Company role that can view and run campaigns.

Verified domain – An e-mail domain whose ownership your company has proven by e-mail or DNS TXT record. Required to add targets and to monitor and scan the domain.

Updated on: 28/10/2026