Whaling

Whaling is a specialised form of phishing that specifically targets senior executives, managing directors and other individuals with extensive access rights or decision-making authority. Attackers often create highly personalised messages designed to appear trustworthy and relevant to legitimate business activities. Their objective can be to obtain login credentials, access confidential corporate information or initiate fraudulent payments. Attackers frequently use publicly available information about organisations, employees and business relationships to prepare convincing messages. As a result, Whaling attacks can be significantly more personalised than conventional phishing campaigns. Protective measures include security awareness training, multi-factor authentication, technical email security controls and clearly defined approval and verification procedures for sensitive transactions.