QR-Code Attacks Target the C-Suite 42 Times More than Standard Employees

QR-code attacks leveraging QR-codes are kicking into high gear and becoming a common method used in phishing attacks, according to new data from Abnormal Security.

We saw a surge in QR-code based phishing attacks late last year. And new data in security vendor Abnormal Security’s H1 2024 Email Threat Report gives us some additional insight into how these attacks are being executed.

According to the report:

• 89.3% of QR code attacks are credential phishing
• 27% of attacks impersonate multi-factor authentication (MFA) notifications
• 21% of attacks sent targets fake notifications of a shared document

Also, SMB (specifically organizations with up to 500 employees) companies are 19 times more likely to receive a QR code phishing attack than the largest enterprises with more than 50,000 employees.

You might be thinking, “Who’s dumb enough to take their phone and scan a QR-code off of their computer?," or “Who can scan a QR-code from an email when they’re reading the email on their mobile device?”

But threat actors have taken this into consideration in their attacks. For example, in the image below, the attackers are using a problem with multi-factor authentication.

This example gets past the first of our collective objections to this mode of attack. And for those victims that are on the device that would otherwise scan the QR code, take the following example and note the “Can’t Scan Image” button at the lower left:

And just like that, the threat actors have convinced your user to engage with the phishing attack by click or camera. It’s that ever-present vigilance that you and I both have every time we open any email.  We need to instill that into regular employees via security awareness training so they realize the lunacy of receiving a QR-code in an email, and learn to ignore or verify it rather than engage with it.

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