Today, we have intuitively adapted to Quick Response (QR) codes in the tapestry of our day-to-day life.
Whether we are scanning the menu at a restaurant or checking in to our flight, they have seamlessly integrated into the consumption of products and information.
Yet, with its widespread adoption, it has also acquired an accompanying security challenge. Bad actors have capitalized on QR codes to perpetrate phishing attacks, deliver malware, and exfiltrate data without the user’s knowledge.
Oftentimes, this is caught after the attack occurs. This is why you should use a safe online QR code scanner that authenticates the link before you click on it is so critical.
QR codes are beloved for their dead-simple use: point, scan, click, you’re done! But the catch is: this is the aspect of QR codes that has made them so appealing to cyber actors.
You see, URLs are the links to QR codes, and they’re something you can easily look at and discern before clicking on them. But the link for a QR code is hidden, and the QR code can look perfectly normal.
It could be printed on a poster, sent to you in an email requesting payment, or dropped in front of a legitimate ad. But once scanned? The link might redirect to a fake banking page, beginning the process of stealing your credentials, or it could prompt the download of some background malware.
In recent years, cybersecurity firms have reported a significant spike in “quishing” (QR code phishing) attacks.
Abnormal Security’s H1 2024 report found that C-Suite executives received 42 times more QR-code phishing attacks than the average employee, and that the vast majority of QR-code attacks were credential-phishing attempts.
Other threat-intelligence firms have also documented large year-on-year increases in quishing mentions and incidents, although the exact percentage rise varies by study.
QR codes are beloved for their dead-simple use: point, scan, click, you’re done! But the catch is: this is the aspect of QR codes that has made them so appealing to cyber actors.
You see, URLs are the links to QR codes, and they’re something you can easily look at and discern before clicking on them. But the link for a QR code is hidden, and the QR code can look perfectly normal.
It could be printed on a poster, sent to you in an email requesting payment, or dropped in front of a legitimate ad.
But once scanned? The link might redirect to a fake banking page, beginning the process of stealing your credentials, or it could prompt the download of some background malware.
This is where secure scanning becomes essential. Safe QR code scanners can detect malicious redirects, flag suspicious domains, and provide a preview of the destination before you take action. In other words, they restore the transparency that QR codes remove.
From a commercial viewpoint, QR codes are a marketer’s dream technology.
They are connectors between the physical world, billboards, product packaging, event space, and the digital universe.
Naturally, retailers use them to direct product information, and travel companies place them in brochures to route consumers to the booking page.
But the same channel that we route through, criminals will target.
An adversary could stick a sticker over the authentic code in a legitimate campaign, and the perpetrators can then get all the legitimate interactions between the consumer and the brand.
Whilst this is a data security breach, the brand will also find its reputation in trouble.
If the consumer considers the brand’s QR code to be part of a phishing/fraudulent site against them, then the brand has an issue of regaining trust.
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t cause the rise of QRs, but it did accelerate it. QR codes are now able to serve as the means of payment, healthcare check-ins, digital menus, and more.
However, their near-immediate ubiquity created greater surface area for attackers in which to do their dirty work.
If you’re in an airport, stadium, or train station with QR codes all around, any rogue code could easily blend in. Most people don’t think “Is this QR safe to scan?” before taking the plunge.
Contactless living is a godsend for humanity, so we all must figure out how to stay ahead of the curve.
Companies that are deploying QR-based solutions have to ensure that they are safely generating, watching, and labeling codes. End users, in turn, need a way to know what they’re scanning.
A secure online QR code reader isn’t just a camera app in disguise. It’s protected by a combination of measures to keep the user safe:
As with many digital safety challenges, regulation tends to follow rather than lead technological change. Currently, relatively few countries have published specific guidelines related to QR safety.
But organizations should be aware that if a hack arising from a manipulated QR code causes consumer data breaches, existing data protection rules, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection Act, are up to the task of imposing severe regulations and large fines.
Organizations again have yet another reason to introduce incident response systems, technical defences, and continuous scanner monitoring: it is always far more convenient and cheaper to stop a breach from happening than it is to clean up the financial and reputational mess afterwards.
Unfortunately, only so much can be left to technology. Just as people were trained not to click on suspicious email attachments 20 years ago, they now need to have a sceptical approach to QR codes.
Preview URLs before deciding whether or not to open them, only scan QR codes from sources you trust, and never follow instructions on an unsolicited QR code. These simple rules will protect you from harm.
QR codes are not intrinsically harmful — they’re like any other technology. But like any other technology, their safety depends upon how they are used.
Surely the time has come for the mass adoption of QR-based payments, mobility services, and marketing to be matched by an equally rapid evolution of security practice.
By making use of the convenience while scanning securely, businesses keep customers safe while engaging in transactions in a contactless world.
By verifying before we click, we can restore QR codes to their original purpose. An elegant, invisible technology that does its job, and then gets out of the way.
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