Businesses are slowly transitioning to QR Codes for vital day-to-day activities - from marketing campaigns and customer experience to information transfer and internal communications. With QR Codes becoming mediums for the exchange of data, it comes as no surprise that they are targeted by users with malicious intent - individuals who seek to exploit flaws in mobile technologies to carry out attacks. This is a threat that organizations and individuals need to be aware of.
To combat this rising interest from bad actors, ensuring that QR Code infrastructure is secure is necessary. This implies setting up measures to protect QR Code end users from malicious attacks and social engineering.
To combat this issue, Uniqode has been implementing malware and phishing URL detection over the past year to ensure that our QR Codes cannot be used to aid users in carrying out phishing attacks.
Since its implementation in April 2021, Uniqode has successfully identified and taken action against 150+ phishing URLs.
How it works
Uniqode maintains a blacklist of phishing URLs that is continuously updated.
The phishing URL detection framework cross-references the link whenever a website URL is linked to a Uniqode QR Code. It disables any QR Codes found to be associated with malicious websites immediately.
The owner of the QR Code will receive an email highlighting the invalid QR Code, with instructions to update the URL attached to the QR Code.
Note: Any account that is found to be creating phishing QR Codes repeatedly will be disabled and deleted at the discretion of the Uniqode team.
Why now?
Uniqode’s malware and phishing URL update is a part of a swathe of security features we’ve been implementing to ensure the safety of our QR Code users. With more users joining Uniqode every day, we wanted to improve the security of our infrastructure and safeguard our clients and end-users from attacks from malicious parties.
Want to learn more about our security features? Click here.
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