Whale Phishing

Those who know me know that I could do without some of the new terms that people come up with in an attempt to get their names attached to something (e.g. vishing, smishing, and bacn), but I read about a new term today which caught my attention mostly because I thought it was pretty clever.

That term is "Whale Phishing."

So what? People are phishing whales now? That seems like a pretty fruitless venture. Last I heard, whales can't read email.

No, "whale phishing" is a targeted phishing attack against affluent people in an attempt to (like most phishing attacks) get them (the "whale") to reveal sensitive financial/account information. So, if people are now being compared to whales, I guess that would make most of us calfs (A "calf" is what you call a baby whale. I learned that while typing up this blog entry!). Even if the term doesn't catch on, I thought it at least interesting and witty enough to chuckle at.

For the record, yes, I am aware that MX Logic coined the term "pharming", but before you go and call me a hypocrite for having this opinion I'd like to go on record as saying that was before my time and as such I am hereby absolving myself from that :)

Posted by smasiello at 2:30 PM | Link | 0 comments

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