The US Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about the dangers of QR codes. The codes appearing in more and more places, usually containing Internet links, have been used by criminals in tens of thousands of cyberattacks.
The square-arranged QR codes, most of which are black and white, are called “QR,” which stands for quick response, and work similarly to barcodes on store products. It is optically readable, can store numbers, letters, and binary codes, and is approximately three thousand bytes in size. This means approximately seven thousand numbers or four thousand characters, which is several times the capacity of traditional barcodes. Although this technology was developed in 1994, it has become really popular with the widespread spread of the Internet, as it can comfortably accommodate even a very long Internet address (URL), which would take much longer to type than to scan the code. Scanned using a camera. . However, if we consider that we are unable to pinpoint exactly which website this link is referring to, we can already guess how this technology has become one of the new favorite techniques of scammers.
the Read an article on the edge Reminds me: Cybersecurity company Trellix has encountered sixty thousand examples where one of these codes served as the entry point into an online scam. It’s no surprise that email scams are the most common, because we’re already used to spoofing messages that come via SMS and digging up our data, but what’s even more surprising is that scammers have also used payroll emails.
In Texas, you can also see QR codes on stickers affixed to parking meters meant to trick victims out of money.
Most cases are a standard phishing attack requesting bank or online access data, but now instead of simple links, perpetrators have tried links embedded in QR codes. Accordingly, as it is Federal Trade Commission warning He also emphasizes that we can protect ourselves in the same way: if we receive the code via email, we check the sender carefully; Be suspicious if the message contains bad Hungarian language, or if it is trying to bully us; If we open the specified page, we look for the lock that indicates authentication in our browser; And keep our phone and computer operating systems up to date with software updates. In addition, especially in the case of QR codes, it is important that the camera of Android and iPhone devices can read them without separate software, and that we do not download applications intended for this purpose, even dangerous ones. Make sure to scan the scanned link before opening it, though unfortunately many companies use link shortening services that can hide the true destination of both good and malicious messages.
(Cover Photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash)
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