Malicious QR Codes: How big of a problem is it, really?
Summary: Cisco Talos reports that QR codes appear in between 0.01% and 0.2% of all email worldwide, roughly one in every 500 messages, and that about 60% of all email containing a QR code is spam. Talos says the most common malicious QR codes are multifactor authentication requests used for phishing credentials, and that attackers have begun crafting QR codes from Unicode characters inside PDFs to evade image-based detection.
Why it matters: When a user scans a QR code on a device off corporate wi-fi, the traffic to the attacker runs over the cellular network, so few or no security device alerts will tell your team it happened. Talos also notes that scanning an unknown QR code is equivalent to clicking a suspicious URL, but without the ability to see the full link first.
Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗
- Topics
- Malware
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