Are QR codes safe?
Why QR codes are designed to be safe, and why security leaks depends only on people who scan them.
The aim of this article is not convincing anyone how cool QR codes are, but giving a honest point of view on their security.
QR code security has nothing to do with their functionality. Let’s see why problems may surge while interacting with them.
QR codes are a technology.
To have a clear view on the topic, you should first know what a QR Code is.
As we explained in the article above, they are a visual representation of content triggered by a scan.
Once generated, QR codes are reliable, immutable, and resilient to alteration. That’s why they are considered a very safe technology.
The key to understanding QR code security is to analyze what happens from the moment a QR code is scanned.
Content automatically pops up, yes, but it will never take the final action on your behalf after you scan it. You are the only person in charge of that.
That’s why security problems are not related to scanning QR codes but to the actions YOU take after opening them.
If QR codes are unsafe, the whole internet is.
Marking QR code usage as safe or unsafe is pure clickbait.
Social media, emails, and the whole internet have scams running every day. Should we mark all these environments as unsafe because of this? No, we just have to know how to use the technology.
The good news for QR code users is that it’s incredibly easy to use them safely.
The key is in our own bias.
In every scam, danger resides in the cognitive bias you create (and keep) in each situation. That’s what determines how you act, distorting the reality of facts or not.
With QR codes, the actions taken after a scan are totally independent of the technology (intrinsically safe). Scanning a QR code will do nothing to your phone, nor to the data stored on it. It’s just the way content is delivered.
All subsequent actions depend on nothing but the person who scans it.
Cognitive bias can blur people’s vision, making it hard to evaluate a context objectively. It can easily trick our minds, hiding clear signs that something is clearly wrong.
Using QR codes safely is easy.
Treat QR codes like a stranger filling data on your behalf, on your device, asking you to enter a few more ones and send them over. Would you do that on a social platform, on a website, via email, or even in real life?
Only if you know or trust the source. Maybe. In all other cases, you’d carefully check, right?
Remove blind biases, check the QR code URL, and use the native QR code scanner of your device‘s camera. That will be enough to avoid the great majority of scams.
You will get used to it pretty fast, understanding how simple and strong QR codes are and how easy it is to use them securely.
Conclusions.
QR codes technology is designed to be secure. Their use is inherently neither safe nor unsafe. It all depends on the bias we are immersed in while reacting to a specific context.
Even if they are designed for opening content with a scan, QR codes can never complete a final action without your confirmation. The only person responsible for the actions taken after every scan is you.
QR codes can be created with malicious intent, yes, but taking simple precautions and using common sense can solve the problem easily.
The vast majority of QR codes are used for passing safe and valuable information quickly, proving to be a fantastic technology to bring content-sharing to a whole new level.
Cheers from BananaQR
