A highly targeted form of social engineering attack aimed specifically at individual senior executives, whaling phishing poses a significant and escalating threat to organizations worldwide.
One particularly concerning trend is the rise of deepfake technology used in whaling attacks, which has seen an increase due to the prevalence of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools. Increasingly, fraudsters are leveraging AI to create hyper-realistic impersonations aimed at convincing high-level executives to authorize fraudulent transactions.
AI-driven fraud now accounts for 42.5% of detected fraud attempts. Even as organizations implement and improve tech-based cyber defenses to protect data and customers, there is a critical need to consider the human aspect of security in protecting against increasingly sophisticated attacks.
Limitations of Server-Side Security
Security measures like firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), intrusion prevention systems (IPS), web application firewalls (WAFs), server-side encryption, and access control systems are designed to ensure that only legitimate users access web assets and services. However, these solutions do not suffice to adequately protect organizations against attacks that manipulate legitimate users into doing an attacker’s bidding.
Whaling phishing, in particular, is gaining attention for its success in high-profile attacks. Most server-side defenses fall short in stopping whaling attacks because they are only capable of detecting tech-based attacks such as exploits and malware. Whaling, in contrast, concentrates on human vulnerabilities. Server-side security solutions cannot catch personalized attacks, especially when these attacks are seamlessly carried out through legitimate or seemingly legitimate communication channels.
To address the limitations of server-side defenses, organizations need a multi-layered approach that reinforces server-side protection with various other security tools and countermeasures. This includes strategies that address both human and tech-driven aspects.
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Security Awareness and Training
Cybersecurity training remains one of the most crucial solutions to compensate for the deficiencies of server-side protection against whaling and other phishing attacks. Not every manager, top-level official, or executive in an organization can detect indicators of phishing attacks. It is important to instill and routinely test skills in spotting signs of possible phishing.
All too often, employees do not receive cybersecurity awareness training in their workplaces, do not have the knowhow required to avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments that come with suspicious emails or messages, and do not understand the need to report cases of phishing they encounter to their IT departments.
It is essential to emphasize security practices among executive leaders and everyone else in an organization. Aside from developing proficiency in detecting phishing attacks, it is also important to implement compulsory security measures, including the activation of multi-factor authentication, limiting information sharing, and verifying requests through alternative channels.
Implementing Advanced Threat Protection
While traditional security tech can’t pick up on all attack attempts, advanced threat protection (ATP) solutions that employ machine learning and artificial intelligence can bolster server-side defenses. Organizations can enforce them alongside their standard server-side defenses and their human firewalls.
One example of an ATP solution is sandboxing, a mechanism that isolates, accesses, and executes suspicious emails, links, and attachments in a secure virtual environment. It enables the analysis of threats without the risk of letting them into the network. This approach is particularly useful in detecting zero-day threats.
Organizations can also undertake behavioral analysis through AI-powered tools that continuously monitor user behavior and system activity. These ceaselessly seek out unusual activity patterns such as clicks on links or attachments that have already been tagged as suspicious or dangerous by other users. These tools can also detect cases of email spoofing and website cloning.
Culture Change
Cybersecurity experts suggest that whaling attacks tend to be underreported. This happens largely because companies hesitate to divulge details about attacks against their high-level officials for fear of reputational damage. They believe that divulging details about successful attacks against their high-profile officials subject them to unnecessary attention and possible loss of trust.
While some incident reporting is mandatory, organizations do not necessarily have to go public about the specifics of attacks on their CEOs and high-level executives. However, it is still vital to strive for internal transparency on cyber attacks and to be proactive about addressing threats. In particular, top-level officials who have access to or control over the web resources of an organization should demonstrate transparency and a deep sense of accountability.
It is advisable to implement workplace security culture change with a solid incident response plan. It is impossible to prevent all whaling threats, hence everyone in an organization should know what to do in case an attack manages to penetrate.
Using Email Security Gateways
Email security gateways (ESGs) are specifically created to sort and secure email communications, both inbound and outbound. These usually provide spam filtering and phishing protection. More advanced ESGs come with data loss prevention, email encryption, and security policy enforcement functions.
Email security gateways conduct pre-delivery scanning, URL and attachment scanning, and behavior analysis to combat phishing. These processes usually operate seamlessly, behind the scenes. However, some may encounter lags or malfunctions in email access, tempting them to temporarily deactivate or reconfigure their ESGs.
IT administrators, system admins, security officers, and other executives usually have access to ESGs, making them ideal whaling targets.
Message Authentication Protocols
Domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication system created to address the threat of email spoofing. It detects cases of emails that appear to originate from a legitimate source.
Email spoofing is a common tactic in whaling, and many executives tend to believe the legitimacy of the email address origin they see on their official emails.
DMARC verifies the source of emails through the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) protocols. It also enables domain owners to define the process by which mail servers handle emails that have been rejected at the SPF and DKIM checks. Additionally, DMARC generates detailed reports to domain owners to help them identify and resolve issues with email authentication.
Conclusion
Server-side security solutions are essential, but they are not enough when dealing with attacks that target human vulnerabilities. A comprehensive approach that combines strong server-side defenses with robust security awareness training, social engineering countermeasures, and effective incident response planning is critical to mitigating the risks associated with the evolving whaling phishing threat.
