Phishing attacks target executives

AYALA-BACKED Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has warned companies and the public about the rise of executive phishing attacks, a sophisticated social engineering scam targeting organizational members. An executive phishing attack, also known as whaling, is a type of phishing scam that specifically targets high-ranking executives or other important individuals within an organization, such as chief executive officers, chief finance officers, or other senior leaders. Unlike regular phishing attacks that cast a wide net to capture any victim, whaling attacks are more focused and personalized. Jonathan John Paz, BPI Enterprise Information Security and Data Protection officer, said executive phishing or whaling can occur over emails and messaging applications like Viber and WhatsApp, in which unscrupulous individuals pose as senior executives to induce the employees to execute fraudule...