QR code phishing (noun)

The word is QR Code Phishing.

Spelled QR for quick response, code for shorthand to describe a complicated idea, and phishing, or a type of cyber attack where a malicious actor attempts to trick and deceive victims into divulging sensitive information.

Definition, a type of phishing attack that uses QR codes as the lure.

Example sentence, QR code phishing attacks can be used to deliver malware to the victim's device.

Origin and Context According to Gokul at the carlist.my website, Denzo Wave, a subsidiary of the Toyota Motor Corporation, was the first to develop quick response codes in 1994 to increase the amount of data that could be stored in a traditional barcode.

Their solution was to include information in both horizontal and vertical directions.

By doing so, the QR code can hold several hundred times the amount of data carried by a traditional barcode.

It's difficult to pinpoint the exact date of the first QR code phishing attack, but it may have been as early as the 2012 mobile Trojan horse software called Percoli that used QR codes as the lure to spread malware to Android devices.

According to Bob Violino at CSO Online, attackers can easily embed malicious URLs containing custom malware into a QR code.

Because humans can't read the QR code by design, it's even a more impenetrable phishing lure than a malicious URL.

At least with a URL, a human can actually read it and decipher themselves if it's questionable.

With a QR code, though, humans can't do that.

Nerd reference.

In the 2008 movie The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale as Batman and the amazing Heath Ledger as the Joker, at one point of the movie, the Joker orchestrates the perfect Trojan horse caper to sneak a bomb into the Gotham police headquarters.

The Joker, as part of his master plan, knew he was going to be sitting in the Gotham jail and he needed a way to break out.

He planted a cell phone bomb into one of his henchman's chest through surgery and arrates for the henchman to be arrested too as the Trojan horse.

In this collection of scenes, the Joker goads his guard into a physical altercation and then overpowers him.

But in another jail cell, the henchman complains that his chest hurts and falls to the ground, causing the police to come to help.

Then, the Joker, holding a knife to his guard's neck, demands his phone call.

The police see nothing immediately wrong with this request and gives the Joker a cell phone.

And the Joker dials a number to the phone embedded in his henchman's chest, setting off the bomb.

This scene starts with the Joker demanding his phone call.

I'm Juan.

I want it.

I want my phone call.