Whaling Attack or Whaling Phishing Attack is a technique used by cybercriminals with an intent to steal sensitive information, money, or access to a facility targeting high-profile & senior executives of an enterprise. Whaling Attack sounds like something related to Whales and that gives a clear sense of what it can be. Whaling Attack is a socially engineered phishing attack where the attackers target a specific set of CXO-level executives who may have a high level of security in place but hold valuable information about their enterprise.
Attackers send out a phishing email to such senior executives which seems coming from a legitimate source seeking and take an urgent action and sometimes time constrained executives may fall prey to such traps and quite possibly share sensitive information assuming that the sender might be the intended user of that information.
Whaling Attack has led to some serious damage running into Millions of Dollars in the past and is a serious cyber threat with strong repercussions than one would imagine. The motivation behind these Whaling Attack is financial fraud.
Ways to Protect your Business from Whaling Attack:
Backup Your Important Business Information:
Firstly, have your critical business data backed up with a robust back-up solution. It not only protects cyber scams but also mitigates the damages if you ever experience one.
Incorporate email protection solutions:
Secondly, be cautious of the emails you reply to and doubly check for the sender’s information like their domain name and alias. They may contain some extra or a smaller number of characters than there should be If those were real users.
Opt for SMIME Email Signing solution:
Another solution is to opt for a SMIME Email Signing solution that allows you to encrypt emails and digitally sign them. Also, helps in assuring that the people you are dealing with are not spammers considering the fact that such attacks are targeted at the senior management.
Opt for DMARC solution:
Opting for DMARC solution can also be one of the solutions to stay protected from Whaling attack. DMARC helps in preventing malicious practices such as domain spoofing and secure recipients’ personal information.
Provide extensive cybersecurity training:
Owners, C-level employees, and other company leaders be appropriately trained about cybersecurity and its role in preventing such scams. As most companies going online and are working virtually, this increases the chances of online scams. It is extremely important that each individual in the organization should know his role in minimizing the chances of cybersecurity threats.
Restrict yourself from using public networks and Wi-Fi:
Laptops and other mobile & handheld devices connected to a public network are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Such public networks allow cybercriminals to access any confidential data whether it is business-related information, personal data, or customer data.
Implement multi-layer security systems:
Multi-layer security was designed and developed to add more security checks to the login process. Multi-layer security helps to improve the security of the business by adding multiple authentication measures. By adding multiple layers of security measures, it becomes harder for someone else to get access to your accounts or sensitive data.
Whaling Attack is one of the most dangerous phishing schemes out there for your business. Invest in these top cybersecurity and encryption technology, backup your important business data, incorporate email protection solutions, opt for a digital signing solution, provide extensive cybersecurity training, restrict yourself from using public networks and Wi-Fi, and Implement multi-layer security systems in the organization. Understanding whaling attack and how to protect your business from such attacks will set your business up for online success.
And there you have it. Here at JNR Management, we look to the future, so we can offer the best protection in the present.
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