What is an example of whaling?
For example, an attacker may send an email to a CEO requesting payment, pretending to be a client of the company. Whaling attacks always personally address targeted individuals, often using their title, position and phone number, which are obtained using company websites, social media or the press.
What is the difference between phishing and whaling?
Whaling is a type of phishing attack that may also be referred to as business email compromise (BEC), or CEO fraud. Whales are high-value targets whose credentials or access to resources have the ability to compromise an organization.
What is whaling in money laundering?
A whaling attack is a method used by cybercriminals to masquerade as a senior player at an organization and directly target senior or other important individuals at an organization, with the aim of stealing money or sensitive information or gaining access to their computer systems for criminal purposes.
What is vishing and whaling?
A technique carried out over the phone (vishing), email (phishing), text (smishing) or even social media with the goal being to trick you into providing information or clicking a link to install malware on your device. You may have also heard the term spear-phishing or whaling. Spear phishing is targeted phishing.
What are the three types of whaling?
There are generally three types of whaling that the Commission regulates: commercial, scientific research, and aboriginal subsistence whaling.
Why is it called whaling?
The term whaling stems from the size of the attacks, and the whales are thought to be picked based on their authority within the company. Due to their highly targeted nature, whaling attacks are often more difficult to detect and prevent than standard phishing attacks.
What is the purpose of whaling?
Today, modern whaling is conducted primarily for meat in commercial whaling. Whales are also being killed in a misguided effort to reduce competition for fish, and several small cetaceans like smaller whales, dolphins, and porpoise species are hunted for the use as a bait to catch fish, especially sharks.
What is the process of whaling?
A harpoon attached to a heavy rope would be thrown into a whale, and when the whale was killed it would be towed to the ship and tied alongside. A grisly process, called "cutting in," would then begin. The whale's skin and blubber would be peeled off in long strips and boiled down to make whale oil.
What is another word for whaling?
What is another word for whaling?hidingbeatingrouttrouncingoverthrowmassacreannihilationshellackingslaughtersubjugation106 more rows
What are the three types of phishing?
What Are the Different Types of Phishing?Spear Phishing.Whaling.Vishing.Email Phishing.
What is phishing vs vishing?
1. Phishing attack is targeted for a wide range of people through emails. A vishing attack is also targeted at a wide range of people through voice communication.
What is an example of vishing?
Vishing attacks examples include: The fraudster calls the victim saying they are from their bank or another institution and informs them that there is a problem with their account or credit card. The false alert may also arrive by SMS initially, asking the person to call a number to resolve the issue.
What is the difference between phishing and phishing?
Differences between Spoofing and Phishing Spoofing is an identity theft where a person is trying to use the identity of a legitimate user. Phishing is where a person steals the sensitive information of user like bank account details.
What are the three types of phishing?
What Are the Different Types of Phishing?Spear Phishing.Whaling.Vishing.Email Phishing.
What is the difference between phishing and spearfishing?
Spear phishing is a targeted attack on a specific person or organization, whereas general phishing campaigns are sent to a large volume of people.
What is an example of phishing?
For example: The user is redirected to myuniversity.edurenewal.com, a bogus page appearing exactly like the real renewal page, where both new and existing passwords are requested. The attacker, monitoring the page, hijacks the original password to gain access to secured areas on the university network.
What Is a Whaling Attack?
A whaling attack is a type of phishing attack where a particularly important person in the organization is targeted. It hinges on the cyber criminal pretending to be a senior member of the organization to gain the trust of the intended target. Once trust is gained, the attacker can prod the target for information that helps them access sensitive areas of the network, passwords, or other user account information.
How to protect your organization from whaling?
The first step in protecting you and your organization from whaling attacks is to educate all potential targets, as well as those that may be used to try to gain access to them. Because this could include a large proportion of your company, it may be best to include a "how to avoid whaling attacks" discussion during a training on other types of phishing threats.
What is phishing email?
Phishing involves tricking someone into revealing sensitive information through an electronic communication. For example, the target may get an email from what appears to be a trusted source. The email may claim the target has to take quick action to rectify a problem. To do this, they must click a link in the email.
Why does a whale not suspect the attacker?
Because of the detailed nature of the email, the whale may not suspect the attacker is falsifying their identity. Once trust has been gained, the attacker could try to get secret information from the whale. For instance, they could say, “Ay, I'm on the road, and I don't have my login for the VPN.
What is spear phishing?
Spear phishing is much like phishing, but it focuses on a particular victim. A phishing attack may use a list of email addresses, sending out the same communication—or similar ones—to everyone on the list. The attacker may also use details that pertain to the identity of the target to make the communication seem more legitimate.
How quickly can a whaling attack happen?
A whaling attack can happen quickly, but it is often executed over the course of weeks or months. When a senior user interacts with the attacker, the attacker’s goal is to establish the target’s genuine trust. Taking the attack to the next stage too quickly may result in the target getting suspicious. However, if the attacker slowly proves that ...
How to avoid whaling attacks?
Avoiding whaling attacks begins with a shift in mindset. When you read an email from someone, you should ask yourself if you were expecting to receive a communication from that specific person. Also think about whether there is anything strange about the email, including not just what is being said but how it is being expressed, the use of punctuation, emojis, or anything else that seems out of the ordinary.
Phishing, Spear-Phishing and Whaling
- For some reason, the world of cyber security is filled with oceanic metaphors, and it’s easy to get them mixed up. So, let’s clear the air (or water?) about what we’re talking about today: Phishing is a type of cyber attack Cyber attackThe use of electronic means to interrupt, manipulate, destroy, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system, n...
Defending Against Whaling
- Protecting yourself from a whaling attack isn’t all that different than protecting yourself from phishing attacks in general. But because the stakes are higher, cyber criminals are putting more work into these messages to trick you. So a phony message might be a little harder to spot. Before acting on any message, stop and review it for signs of phishing: 1. Does the sender’s em…
Trust in Your Team
- Any business is only as secure as its least cyber safe employee. Making sure employees at all levels are trained to spot a phishing attackis an essential part of keeping company secrets a secret. If you have an executive assistant, they should be trained on how to identify phishing and whaling attempts as well. They’re your first line of defence in not falling for a phishing attack.
Conclusion
- Phishing scams aren’t all about inheritance from foreign royalty and contest or lottery winnings. Sometimes, like with whaling, they’re a lot more subtle and difficult to spot. That’s what makes them so dangerous, and why you and your employees need to stay vigilant and keep an eye out for signs of phishing. Phishing scams can happen to anyone — even to tech-savvy people or co…