Cybercrime on the rise
These codes are everywhere and I bet you've scanned at least one this week, but you should be careful next time, it might not be as safe as you think.
This code has become an important resource for all types of establishments all over the world, it turns out to be functional and easy to use, not to mention its free cost of creation. As a result, almost every store and business in the country uses it for different purposes, regardless of the type of business. But, you know what makes it so special?
Functionality and origins
First of all, let's talk about its origins. It was first created in 1994 in Japan by a company called Denso Wave, which is a subsidiary of the Toyota group. It was created with the main purpose to process information quicker, from here his name, being QR short for Quick Response. It is a two-dimensional barcode as a series of pixels, capable of being read in two directions (top to bottom and left to right), making it more accessible and compatible with almost any digital device. Thanks to its pattern, it can contain a large amount of data, such as website links, visuals, account information, etc. In conclusion, we can see this code as the evolution of the classic barcodes.
It became popular in Japan in the late 90’s, a few years after its creation, and has since become the most popular and used code on the market. It arrived in the United States in 2010 and soon after in Europe, mostly for commercial purposes. But in the period of 10 years, the use of this code grew exponentially with the advance of smartphones and technology in general, making this not only a great tool for customers, but also as a great way to process and manage all kinds of information.
Pandemic Days
Yes, as we mentioned before, the use of this code was growing very fast worldwide, but it is undeniable that the boom in its use was thanks to the pandemic situation in 2020.
Looking back to those first months of global pandemic, we can agree that the use of QR codes was one of the most useful resources to get all kinds of information in order to avoid contagion by touching possible contaminated surfaces or objects, such as printed menus.
It's fair to say that this situation became a game changer for the food and beverage industry, completely turning around the dynamics on the service floor or even at shopping in farmers markets.
Today we use this code to get prices, order food, look up nutritional information, check a menu and so on. It doesn't matter if prevention restrictions are reduced with the vaccination campaign or the decrease in cases, scanning one of these codes is part of the new experience of buying anything these days. It's easy and convenient for customers and, especially in this digital era, where we can do everything on our phones, it was only a matter of time before we reached this point, seeing tangible changes throughout the food industry.
Also crime evolves
As technology develops and the world changes, we change with it. By now, we've talked about how our purchases are evolving, but we haven't talked about how the way we pay for everything has changed over the years. With platforms like Paypal, Apple pay or even with the continued growth of bitcoins acceptance (visit our blog to learn more about this topic) our phone became our wallet, making us keep all our banking information and credit history in one click access and even though the security on various apps containing sensitive information are getting higher and higher on the point of making it unbreakable, the ways to defeat the systems are evolving as well. And now, with the constant use of QR codes, fraudsters have found the perfect opportunity to get into our phones without much effort.
Authorities are alerting the public to a series of QR code scams across the country. The modus operandi is quite simple; the scammers put in the codes a link that takes you to a specially designed website to find in your phone passwords, bank accounts and credit card numbers. Mostly, these fraudulent codes are found in random places all over the streets, such as bus stops, walls, print flyers, etc. But, with the easy creation of QRs by unknown online apps, the code for your store could be a scammer without you being aware of it.
The cases of these unfortunate situations are increasing considerably since the first half of 2021 and despite the relevant authorities are doing everything possible to stop these scams, the recommendation it's to protect your personal information and be careful the next time you use one of these codes.
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