How First Liberty Replaced Tune-Out Compliance Training with Personalized Security Awareness from Adaptive Security

“Adaptive is hands down the best security awareness platform I have used. The training is engaging, highly customizable, and personalized, and our staff responded positively. We have seen a noticeable improvement in their ability to recognize and report threats.”

About First Liberty

First Liberty Institute is the largest legal organization in the country dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for Americans of all faiths. Founded in 1997 and based in Plano, Texas, its attorneys and a nationwide network of volunteer counsel take on cases from local disputes all the way to the Supreme Court, at no cost to the people they represent.

Behind that mission sits a great deal of sensitive information. First Liberty holds privileged legal case files and the personal details of the donors who make its work possible, and protecting all of it is part of protecting the mission itself. That responsibility falls to a lean IT team led by Director of Information Technology Cory O'Neill, who has spent seven years keeping the organization's technology secure, reliable, and aligned with its purpose.

Challenge

Compliance training staff had learned to tune out

First Liberty had a security awareness program, but it had the problem most organizations know well. The training was built around compliance rather than engagement, and over time it became repetitive and easy to ignore. For a small team protecting high-stakes legal and donor data, awareness that people quietly skipped was not enough.

The stakes were rising at the same time. As AI made social engineering far more convincing, Cory was thinking specifically about the kind of attack aimed at an organization like First Liberty. Deepfakes are being used to impersonate trusted contacts and trick staff into sharing sensitive information or even authorizing payments.

The Turning Point

Training built around the person, not the checkbox

What set Adaptive apart for Cory was that it treated awareness as something to tailor rather than something to assign in bulk. The content was timely and engaging, the simulations covered the emerging threats he was worried about, and the training adapted to each person's risk instead of pushing everyone through the same generic module.

That level of personalization is the thing that stands out to Cory the most.

Solution

Personalized, risk-based training that keeps security relevant without overwhelming staff

First Liberty runs its awareness program on Adaptive, and the difference is in how the program meets each employee. Rather than a once-a-year compliance push, staff gets timely content and realistic simulations tuned to the threats that matter now, including deepfakes and AI-generated phishing, with training personalized to an individual's risk so it stays relevant without becoming noise.

Because the content is engaging and to the point, people actually get through it. First Liberty's staff completed their cybersecurity training at a near-universal rate, and did it fast, finishing in about a day rather than dragging out over weeks of reminders.

The result Cory cares about most is not a number on a dashboard but a shift in how people behave. Staff are noticing more, second-guessing the right things, and speaking up when something looks off.

Results

Training people finish, and a workforce that catches more

The clearest early proof is engagement. Where the old program was something staff tuned out, the new one gets completed quickly and nearly in full, which means the lessons are actually reaching the people who need them.

More important is what that engagement is producing. First Liberty's staff are more alert to suspicious activity and more willing to flag it, turning security awareness from an annual obligation into a habit that shows up in day-to-day behavior. For an organization that holds privileged legal files and donor information, a workforce that recognizes a deepfake or a fraudulent payment request before acting on it is a direct protection of the trust its mission depends on.

Cory's bottom line reflects how far the program has come, and it is the highest rating he can give.