Infotrust is one of Australia's largest listed cyber security providers: it trades on the ASX as ITS, runs a Security Operations Centre in Sydney that monitors around the clock, and fields a team of more than 110 cyber security professionals built from more than a decade of legacy firms — Spirit Managed Services, Intalock Cyber Security and InfoTrust. In February 2026 it divested Nexgen Australia for $50 million to sharpen itself into a dedicated, sovereign security and managed-technology provider. Its portfolio spans managed SIEM, extended detection and response, incident response, penetration testing and compliance consulting, with data security awareness training offered as one service among many. For education providers, the case for looking beyond it is structural: awareness training is a module inside an enterprise managed-services relationship, not a programme a school can run on its own. This guide compares Infotrust against four alternatives for education providers in 2026.
TL;DR
- Best overall for Australian education providers: Cyber Aware — automated monthly training and phishing simulations with Essential 8 and SMB1001 evidence, per-seat with no minimums.
- Best fully managed: Huntress SAT at $2.08/learner/month — though its tiers start at the 50-99 learner band.
- Best for bundled managed security: Infotrust itself — a sovereign Australian SOC with awareness training among its managed service extensions.
- The trade: a managed-services contract buys a security team; an automation platform buys a programme that runs itself.
What Infotrust actually offers education providers
Infotrust's strength is depth of security operations, not training cadence. Its Security Operations Centre delivers continuous monitoring, threat detection and incident response, and it was a finalist for SOC Provider of the Year at the Australian Cyber Awards 2025. The sovereign angle is deliberate — after divesting its telco-adjacent Nexgen business for $50 million in February 2026, the company positions itself squarely on Australian-based security capability, with service levels and onshore or offshore delivery preferences configurable per client.
For an education provider, the relevant facts are:
- Awareness training is a managed-service extension, not a self-serve platform. Infotrust's published materials describe data security awareness training alongside incident management, managed SIEM and XDR — delivered and operated with the provider rather than run by a school's own staff on a self-building calendar.
- Pricing is not published. No per-user rate or seat minimum appears publicly; every engagement is quoted.
- The SOC is the product. The awareness line exists to support a managed security relationship, which suits organisations that want to outsource security operations wholesale.
That model fits a university with an enterprise IT function or a large education group buying managed security. It fits less well when the need is a training programme that runs monthly across teaching and admin staff without a services contract.
Infotrust vs the alternatives at a glance
| Platform | Best for | Standout feature | Pricing model | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infotrust | Institutions buying managed security operations wholesale | 24/7 Australian SOC with awareness training as a service extension | Quote-based; not published | Training runs inside a services engagement, not a self-serve calendar |
| Cyber Aware | Schools and education groups needing automation and evidence | A year of phishing campaigns from one setup | Per-seat, no minimums | Newer platform with fewer third-party review ratings |
| Huntress SAT | Education providers that want zero admin | Fully managed monthly campaigns run by Huntress researchers | $2.08/learner/month published; tiers start at 50-99 learners | 12-month term; US data centres |
| KnowBe4 | Large institutions with an IT security team | 1,000+ modules in 35+ languages | From $2.40/user/month; 25-seat bands on 3-year terms | No Australian framework mapping; US data processing |
| uSecure | Smaller providers on tight budgets | Per-seat pricing with no minimums | Per-seat, no minimums | EU/UK-centric compliance set; no Australian data location |
Pricing for Huntress, KnowBe4 and uSecure reflects each vendor's published rates checked in October 2026 and changes without notice.
1. Cyber Aware: best for education providers that need automation and evidence
Cyber Aware is a self-serve human-risk platform built in Australia, and it fits the shape of an education provider: no dedicated security team, staff who join and leave every term, and an administrator who cannot spend hours building campaigns.
Cyber Aware pros:
- 120+ story-driven training videos, each followed by a comprehension quiz, assigned monthly rather than one annual session.
- 100+ phishing templates — fake supply invoices, payroll diversion, parent-portal lures — with AI-generated variants refreshed weekly, and no credential harvesting in simulations.
- Anyone who clicks a simulated phish is auto-enrolled into the failed-phishing course the same day.
- Per-seat pricing with no seat minimums — cost stays proportional to actual headcount as casuals and contractors rotate.
- Human risk reporting turns overdue courses, failed quizzes and phishing clicks into one score per learner, exportable as branded PDFs for departments, auditors and insurers.
- Essential 8 and SMB1001 mapped and evidenced out of the box — the framework layer no other platform in this comparison publishes.
Cyber Aware cons:
- No bundled SOC, SIEM or incident-response service — awareness only, so security operations stay a separate decision.
- Newer than KnowBe4 and Huntress, with fewer third-party review ratings to benchmark against.
Best for: schools, institutes and education groups that need a monthly programme with audit-grade evidence and no services retainer.
2. Huntress SAT: best for providers that want a fully managed programme
Huntress sells awareness training as a managed service: its researchers pick the monthly episode, design and schedule the phishing campaigns and coach everyone who clicks. An education provider's part-time IT contractor does nothing after onboarding.
Huntress SAT pros:
- Fully managed cadence — campaigns run end to end without the organisation lifting a finger.
- Published pricing at $2.08/learner/month, billed on active users only.
- Story-based episodes with strong learner sentiment — 4.6/5 across 173 G2 reviews.
Huntress SAT cons:
- Tiers start at the 50-99 learner band on a standard 12-month term — a poor fit for a small school.
- Co-branding rather than white-label: no custom portal domain.
- Data is held in US-based data centres per Huntress's own documentation.
Best for: larger education providers of 50+ staff that prefer to buy an outcome rather than run a platform.
3. KnowBe4: best for large institutions with an IT security team
KnowBe4 remains the category benchmark for content: 1,000+ modules in 35+ languages on the top tier, roughly 70,000 customers and 18 consecutive quarters at #1 on G2's grid.
KnowBe4 pros: deepest content library in the market, including compliance modules; the industry's largest phishing benchmark dataset; a genuine partner and multi-account console.
KnowBe4 cons: published bands start at 25 seats on 3-year list terms; the headline rate excludes Compliance Plus, SecurityCoach and the AIDA AI agents — each a separately priced add-on; no Essential 8 or SMB1001 reference found on knowbe4.com, and personal data is generally processed in the United States per KnowBe4's own documentation.
Best for: universities and large education systems with dedicated IT security staff.
4. uSecure: best for smaller providers on tight budgets
uSecure is a clean, low-cost per-seat option with no minimums, and it manages multiple entities from one dashboard — useful for an education group overseeing several campuses.
uSecure pros: per-seat pricing with no minimums or long commitments; a single dashboard for every entity.
uSecure cons: its published compliance set is EU/UK-centric (ISO 27001, GDPR, DORA, NIS2) with no Essential 8 or SMB1001 reference found; there is no custom domain for the admin or training portal.
Best for: smaller providers that need basic training and simulated phishing without Australian framework evidence.
Why education providers look beyond Infotrust
- A module is not a programme. Departments and auditors ask about awareness training as a standing control. A service line inside a managed-security engagement exists when the engagement is active; a self-serve calendar runs every month regardless.
- Enterprise pricing does not bend to a school budget. A managed SOC relationship is scoped and quoted for enterprise buyers. Per-seat pricing keeps cost proportional to the actual number of staff.
- Term-time churn needs automation. Staff and casuals join and leave every term. A platform with directory sync keeps coverage current; a services-delivered course does not.
- Framework evidence. Education providers handling sensitive student data are increasingly asked about Essential 8 or SMB1001 — and no Infotrust mapping for its training line is published.
When Infotrust is the right call
Stay with Infotrust if the institution already buys managed security operations — monitoring, incident response, SIEM — and wants awareness training consolidated with the same sovereign Australian provider. The 24/7 SOC and the onshore capability are real advantages for institutions holding sensitive student and research data, and one vendor across detection and response is operationally simpler than two. The gap is cadence and evidence between engagements, not capability inside them.
A security gap assessment answers whether the human layer is even the biggest exposure before either route is chosen — and it costs nothing to run.
FAQ
What is the best Infotrust alternative for an Australian school? Cyber Aware, for an education provider that needs measured monthly training and phishing simulations with Essential 8 and SMB1001 evidence at per-seat pricing with no minimums. Huntress SAT is the managed alternative, though its tiers start at the 50-99 learner band.
Is Infotrust Australian? Yes — it trades on the ASX as ITS, runs its Security Operations Centre in Sydney and positions itself as a sovereign Australian security provider, reinforced by the $50 million divestment of Nexgen Australia in February 2026.
Does Infotrust run phishing simulations? Infotrust offers data security awareness training as part of its managed service portfolio. It does not publish a self-serve simulation platform or per-user pricing — delivery is quoted per engagement.
How much does Infotrust cost? Pricing is not published — managed security engagements are quoted. Published per-seat alternatives in 2026 run $2.08-$2.40 per user per month at entry tiers.
Which alternative produces Essential 8 evidence? Cyber Aware is the only platform in this comparison with a published, out-of-the-box mapping to Essential 8 and SMB1001 as of October 2026.
What should schools train staff on? Fake supply invoices, payroll diversion and parent-portal phishing are the lures schools actually receive — the full cadence and evidence checklist is in the schools training guide.
One last thing
Before choosing between a managed-services provider and a platform, run a security gap assessment. Education providers routinely assume a security operations partner covers the human layer — the assessment frequently says otherwise, and a decision made on evidence beats one made on vendor noise.