Better Business Bureau (BBB): A Threat Analysis of Targeted Spear-Phishing Attacks

Executive Summary Since February 2007, more than 65 waves of highly targeted e-mail fraud attacks have attempted to compromise worldwide corporations and financial institutions; these attacks, called “spear phishing” or “whaling,” use trickery and trust to convince users to click a link, which installs malicious code on their computer. After installing the malicious code, the attacker is able to collect valuable personal and professional data from the victim and at times allows them complete control of the affected computer.