Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP / Getty Images
A report from the cybersecurity firm TitanHQ warned that hackers seem to have started using QR codes to scam their victims and steal from them your money. Experts suggest that the risk lies mainly in the fact that it is impossible to know if one of these codes is malicious until it has been scanned.
An aspect to take taken into account is that it is calculated that at least 84 % of users who have smartphones have scanned a QR code at least once. Likewise, it is estimated that 34 % of users scan QR codes once a week, which demonstrates the penetration of this technology.
The experts from the cybersecurity firm explain that it is currently very likely that a relatively large percentage of QR codes found on public sites contain a malicious code.
They indicate that in these cases the codes are designed so that when using them the user is redirected to a malicious website , which using phishing will try to trick the person into browsing it and at a certain point enter their personal information. All this while the victim thinks that he is browsing a secure website and that he has nothing to fear. Subsequently, the information obtained by hackers is used to carry out scams and try to steal money from said person.
This represents a serious problem taking taking into account the growing number of businesses that use this type of system to facilitate communication with their customers. Such is the case of restaurants, where it is increasingly common to see that the menus are available in this digital format.
It is for this reason that they recommend avoiding using QR codes in public places in which the person is not sure about whether it is of a real code or if, on the contrary, it may come from a third person.
According to an investigation carried out by the firm Atlas VPN, so Only during the first half of this year in the United States it is estimated that there were losses of approximately $3,330 million dollars.
These These figures represent a clear increase with respect to previous years, since during the same period in 2020 and 2021 the losses generated were only $1, 34 and 2, 330 billions of dollars respectively.
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