Tips to protect yourself from Malicious QR Codes

Scan and find out

You see these little suckers everywhere now: at coffee shops, on signposts, in bank statements, and beyond. And while they provide an easy way to access information, they can very easily be abused to take your phone to sites with ill intent.

Our team had a great video training us on the topic a couple of months ago. In summary: don’t trust any QR codes. However, I wanted to add some items here to harden everyone’s exposure to this issue further.

Which app should I use?

Going through a few options, I quickly concluded that the Kaspersky QR Code scanner was the best out there. Now you may have opinions to the contrary, but I challenge you to do an image search for “Malicious QR codes” and point your phone at it if you are that confident.

Seriously, don’t do it!

How do I make sure I use the app every time?

It’s one thing to install an app on your phone, but it’s another to use it. It’s super easy to forget in the heat of the moment, with every phone having QR code scanning active on the camera by default.

Let’s go ahead and deactivate this feature.

• On iPhone — go to settings>Camera. Find “Scan QR Codes” and ensure that it is toggled off.

• On Android devices, go to the camera, and select settings. Next, find “Scan QR Codes” and ensure it is toggled off.

As a non-Android user myself, I have only tried this on one device, which may differ between versions or devices.

And there you go! Next time you feel like aiming your camera at some whimsical dots, you’ll have that extra critical moment to examine the QR code while reducing your risk if you decide to scan it.

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