The big catch: How whaling attacks target top executives

This article explains how whaling attacks target senior executives through spear phishing and business email compromise, increasingly amplified by AI-driven reconnaissance and deepfakes, and illustrates the stakes with the Levitas Capital case. It details common TTPs (spoofed trusted senders, urgency, credential theft, account takeover) and emphasizes that executives’ visibility, authority, and time pressure heighten risk. Recommended defenses include executive-specific simulations, rigorous multi-party fund-approval and out-of-band verification, AI-based email security and deepfake detection, Zero Trust with least privilege and just-in-time access, and limiting publicly shared corporate details.