Whaling attacks are synonymous with CEO fraud, which is a popular tactic used by cybercriminals to defraud companies. In a Whaling attack, attackers target individuals who are at the authoritarian or decision-making positions in an organization, such as senior executives and high-level officials. It’s a potent, highly targeted form of phishing or spear phishing attack designed to trick high-value targets (HVTs) into giving up corporate information, credentials, clicking malicious links, opening malicious files, or initiating wire transfers. The goal is often to steal sensitive data, gain access to critical systems (like those with financial details), or use compromised credentials for further malicious activity. Phishing attacks remain a significant threat; CISCO found that 86% of firms had at least one employee fall for a phishing scam in their 2021 research, and the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) recorded over one million unique phishing attacks in Q1 of 2022 alone.

Key Takeaways

Whaling attacks use sophisticated research to target high-ranking executives for sensitive corporate data or system access.
Whaling differs from regular phishing in its specific targeting, higher sophistication, and potentially more devastating consequences (financial, reputational).
Effective defense requires a multi-layered approach combining email authentication (DMARC at p=reject), security best practices (2FA, updates), and employee awareness training.
Attackers often research targets using social media and public information to craft convincing, personalized whaling emails.
Implementing DMARC, SPF, and DKIM is critical for blocking domain spoofing in whaling attacks and monitoring threats.

How does a Whaling Attack take place?

To understand how whaling takes place let us first try to grasp the difference between whaling attacks, phishing, and spear phishing:

What is Regular Phishing?

Social engineering, or regular phishing, involves tricking individuals into revealing sensitive information, like login credentials or financial information. The attacker often impersonates a trustworthy entity, such as a bank or government agency, and sends an email or message requesting information or a link to a fake website. Regular phishing attacks are often sent to large groups of people hoping that a small percentage will fall for the trick.

Whaling VS Phishing

Targeting: A regular phishing attack does not target specific high-ranking individuals; it casts a wide net aiming for a broad audience. A whaling attack specifically targets senior executives and high-level officials (“whales” or “big fish”).
Sophistication: Regular phishing attacks are often simple. Whaling attacks are typically more elaborate, well-crafted, and personalized, often using official logos, language, and seemingly legitimate email addresses after careful research into the target’s role, responsibilities, and habits.
Information Targeted: Regular phishing often seeks login credentials or personal financial information. Whaling aims for high-value sensitive corporate information, such as trade secrets, confidential documents, or access to company financial accounts and systems.
Tactics: Regular phishing might use generic scare tactics. Whaling may employ more elaborate tactics like creating fake websites mirroring legitimate ones or creating a false sense of urgency related to business matters.
Impact: While any phishing can be damaging, a successful whaling attack is often more devastating due to the high-level access and sensitive data involved, potentially causing significant financial loss and reputational damage. A whaling attack is twice as successful and dangerous since it plays on an existing individual’s reliability and authority to fool victims.
Mode of Attack: Both often use email, but whaling might also involve targeted phone calls or other communication methods.

Whaling VS Spear Phishing

Spear phishing attacks are also highly targeted phishing attacks that earmark specific personalities or groups within an organization to launch fraudulent campaigns.
Whaling differs from general spear phishing in the aspect that they only pick out the most senior company executives (the “whales”) as their primary target.

In whaling an attacker will send a phishing email to a senior executive, posing to be his manager, CEO, or CFO, or sometimes targeting a lower-level employee by impersonating an executive. This email will either instigate a wire transfer of company funds or ask for corporate credentials that would help the attacker gain access to the organization’s system.

Whaling Attack Definition

The term “Whaling” is used to signify company executives or big fishes like the CEO and CFO. Since these individuals are in high-ranking positions in the company, they have access to sensitive information like no other. This is why impersonating them or tricking them can prove to be detrimental to a company’s business and reputation, leading to potential financial losses, data breaches, loss of productivity, and even legal consequences.

Whaling Attack Examples

In the example shown above, John, the finance team manager, received an email from Harry, the CEO of the organization, asking him to initiate an urgent wire transfer. In this case, if John doesn’t verify the request through another channel or recognize the signs of phishing, he would end up transferring the funds to which he has access and thereby fall prey to the whaling attack.

How to stop Whaling Attacks: protecting your organization and data

To make these attacks even more effective as a social engineering tactic, attackers often do their homework elaborately and in great detail. They utilize publicly available information gathered from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as company websites, to have an understanding of an executive’s daily life, activities, responsibilities, and professional relationships. This makes them come off as credible and legitimate, helping them fool their victims easily.

Is there any way to stop whaling attacks? Yes, there is! Given below are certain proactive measures that you can deploy to help you combat phishing, spoofing, whaling, and other forms of social engineering attacks. A multi-layered approach is best:

Email Authentication Protocols:
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF) helps you authorize your legitimate sending sources. If you are using multiple domains or third parties to send emails, an SPF record will help you specify them so that malicious domains impersonating yours can be identified.
- DomainKeys Identified Mail or DKIM is an email authentication protocol that uses cryptographic signatures to help ensure that your messages are unaltered throughout their journey.
- And finally, DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) helps align SPF or DKIM identifiers and specifies to email receiving servers how you want to handle fake whaling messages sent from your domain (e.g., reject them). A DMARC policy set to `p=reject` can effectively combat direct-domain spoofing used in whaling. It enables you to reject email that fails checks, require authentication for outbound email, and stop spoofed emails from being delivered.
DMARC Reporting: After enforcing your policy mode, turn on DMARC aggregate and forensic reports to monitor your email sources, understand deliverability, and quickly pick up on any attempted attacks on your domain. A DMARC analyzer tool can help manage these reports and safely upgrade policies.
Employee Education and Training: Ensure employees, especially high-level executives and finance teams, are aware of whaling risks and trained to recognize suspicious emails, verify requests (especially financial ones) through a separate communication channel, and avoid clicking unknown links or opening unexpected attachments. Regular cyber awareness training is crucial.
Strong Authentication: Implement two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, especially for email and sensitive system access.
Password Security: Enforce policies for strong, unique passwords for all accounts.
Email Filtering and Security Software: Use robust email filtering solutions to block suspicious emails or flag them for review. Employ endpoint security like antivirus and firewall protection.
Regular Software Updates: Keep all software, operating systems, and browsers up to date with the latest security patches to prevent vulnerability exploitation.
Network Security: Implement strong network security measures, potentially including network segmentation and strict access controls.
Incident Response Plan: Have a clear plan for responding to security incidents like phishing or whaling attacks to minimize damage and enable rapid recovery.

With these security measures in place, you can definitely reduce the success rate of social engineering attacks targeted towards your organization’s employees. Combining technical controls like DMARC with ongoing education and awareness is key to building a strong defense against whaling. Implementing DMARC can also pave the way for technologies like BIMI, allowing you to attach your verified brand logo to emails, further increasing trust and recognition.

About
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Yunes Tarada

Domain & Email Security Expert at PowerDMARC

Yunes is an Operations Team Lead at PowerDMARC with expert knowledge in email authentication and security. Yunes is a Microsoft-certified Azure Administrator Associate with certifications in CompTIA A+ and many more.

What is a Whaling Attack?