I wanted to check this with the experts. Are others also seeing a changed tactic in phishing emails where attackers are now using QR codes in the phishing emails? Does anyone have any information or point of view why this may be?
From what I'm seeing, there has been a recent uptick in the use of QR codes in phishing emails (a.k.a. quishing). This allows the attacker to bypass (at least for now) typical security mitigations against phishing, such as features that check and block phishing URLs that are associated to hyperlinks within an email (e.g., Microsoft Defender O365's Safe Links). Also, you can't hover your mouse over the QR code within an email to determine where the QR code will take you (whereas with hyperlinks in an email, when you hover your mouse over the hyperlink you'll see the URL).
I saw one time that people were printing out QR codes as stickers and placing them on top on pre-existing QR codes on real documents. How can someone know if the QR code is wrong before clicking it? Is there any way to mitigate this problem in an email or in real life before getting attacked?
