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Malicious QR Code Use On the Rise
New submitter EliSowash writes "Malware developers are increasingly using QR Codes as an attack vector. 'The big problem is that the QR code to a human being is nothing more than "that little square with a bunch of strange blocks in it." There's no way to tell what is behind that QR code.' The advice we've always given to the computer user community is 'don't click a link in an email if you don't know who it's from or where it goes' — so how do we protect unsuspecting users from QR codes, where you can't see the destination at all?"
Use a service that will decode it for you. With TinyURL you are really in a bind as you must trust TinyURL itself to discover where the link goes. At least with QR the code can be decoded locally, with software that you trust.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Does anyone have a QR code to a Rick Roll?
The QR scanner app that I use has an option to show the URL before going to it which seems like a good approach, though it's not on by default. Seems like having the a such an option be the default would be a good first step, perhaps with a straight through exception for sites already visited.
This just in:
Clicking a hyperlink may result in being directed to a malicious site.
Considering 99% of uses don't check the URL of hyperlinks, I'm not sure how QR codes are any different... they're just physical hyperlinks for camera phones.
http://bit.ly/rCBPp7 You don't know where that link goes until you click it. So, what do you do?
You can do a lot with QR codes that have no destination at all, they are not restricted to web links.
They can be simple text messages, address book entries, phone numbers, wifi network set up instructions, calendar events, etc.
But every implementation I've seen of a QR code reader in Android and IOS also gives you the option to inspect
the content visually before acting on it. They ask if you want to proceed.
Of course one could argue the click-thru generation does not know enough to evaluate the content, but then
these are the same people that no amount of malware/antivirus software can protect. They do the same with
links in email links.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
A while back, a friend of mine at a university printed up several dozen flyers with a QR code pointing to LemonParty and posted them around campus. Hilarity ensued as he took pictures of people's reactions as they scanned them.
"liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
I don't understand why QR codes are needed. Why can't the camera use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) instead? Maybe a standard font that's easy for OCR to read, like that MICR font they invented for check numbering in the 1960s. Maybe at first the phone just sends the image up to a server, for 3D->2D reformation and reading. But it would eliminate this problem.
And also the IDN homograph attack that will surely become more widespread with the increase in Unicode in the Web and gradually in URLs. Your phone would be set to decode the URLs as your home character set, that you recognize, for opening as a URL - not the arbitrary URL composed of the similar looking but different valued Unicode characters.
WYSIWYG URLs. An idea whose time has come.
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make install -not war
Something's fundamentally wrong, though, if you can't click on a random link. OK, maybe there's a browser vulnerability from time to time, and given how many there have been, clicking on random links (especially on the seedier side of the web) might not be the smartest thing you can do - but if end users are supposed to have to worry about clicking on a link, then we (the techies) are letting them down big time.
Imagine being at the book store with your children, family, friends, etc. and thumbing though magazines to pass away the time. Now I know a streaker could AT ANY TIME run through the place and just wreck the friendly atmosphere, but he would be kicked out, and aside from that you wouldn't expect to randomly turn a magazine page to child porn, a rick roll, snuff film, man's stretched asshole, or other obscenity, unless you went to a place that sold those things.
Is it wrong to want little sanctuaries like that? I could go to another bookstore if I wanted, but I don't like sipping coffee with a book next to a rack of dildos. A little discretion, that's what people want. You can call it censorship or whatever if you want, but people want a little of that in public places, and that's what the Internet is.
I can appreciate the Internet for what it is, a weird private-public place, I do, but it's not being treated by most like the seedy underground cesspool it really is, and that bugs me. You SHOULD worry about clicking on a link - it was designed that way. It is analogous to the kind of physical places that make you want to take a bath after visiting. An AWESOME place for grey/black markets and all sorts of counter-culture memes. Places where you watch your back constantly, and most people rather not go.
Something IS fundamentally wrong with advocating it as a safe place for the public to do business and socialize. And we should stop laughing at people who get ripped off and abused by it. Nobody is "asking for" the kind of abuse you find on this network, and there is no safe alternative provided.