QR code: How not to share personal data

Recently two-dimensional QR-codes have become widely used. Today they are being used increasingly in outdoor and print advertising, on various signs, billboards, in magazines. The popularity of tablets and smartphones can surely be called as one of the factors that contributed to the emergence and development of the technology of QR. Its convenience is extremely attractive: installing a special application, a smartphone owner can obtain the necessary information about certain products, services, events, and easily get links to web pages, information about Wi-Fi networks, etc.
Nevertheless each technology that makes our life easier, can trigger some unwanted processes by attracting fraudsters seeking to use the given technology for their own benefit. Thus, using a code of this type you can be easily redirected to a website может привести смартфон РЅР° сайт, зараженный malicious program for iOS, Android or another operating system, install a virus that will run in the background and send the attackers owner’s password or send SMS messages to premium rate numbers.
Murdoch University specialists, who are doing some research connected to the problem, share one view: QR codes are potentially dangerous. So that not to become a cheatee, the university specialists recommend the following:

1. Use only those QR-codes that can fully show the URL before directing one to a particular site.
2. Never leave your personal information on websites to which you have moved by using QR-code, as it may be fraudulent.
3. Furthermore, it wouldn’t go amiss to take care of the devices protection with the help of anti-virus.
But the surest way to protect yourself against intruders can be considered a well-known Internet-using rule: don’t follow the shifty-looking links, but in this case the rule will sound in some other way: «don’t use shifty-looking QR-codes».

Users should refer to their smartphones protection as carefully as to the protection of their PC.