Whaling – a dangerous new cyber threat

One of the most recent cyber security threats to come to our attention is the ‘whaling’ scam. This is a highly personalised form of phishing used to trick victims into giving away sensitive information and access to networks.

What is it?

Most phishing scams target a wide range of people and hackers will send their scam emails to a large number of recipients. However ‘whaling’ is different in that cyber criminals approach one ‘high value’ target with a highly personalised message instead.

Ubiquiti Networks, a provider of high-end wireless networking products, recently fell victim to a whaling attack which resulted in losses of $47m (£30m) for the company.