In a very short time, QR codes have gone from being something inconsequential to becoming a fundamental part of our lives. The great fault of this is the pandemic, which has generated that on numerous occasions we depend on scanning one of these codes to access, for example, a restaurant menu. But can they hack your mobile by scanning these images?
This is a question that has crossed the minds of an enormous number of people. Accessing a link through a QR could cause us to come across a web page for malicious purposes, although this is not something that usually happens in the establishments we visit. Eye! This does not mean that they cannot use these codes to hack our phone and access our personal information.
Be careful what you scan
The use of these contents to steal personal information is a practice that has spread during the pandemic since we depended on them to access all kinds of information. In this way, hackers have found a quick and easy way to gain access to our data.
Just by scanning a code we would be opening the doors of entry to our device. This is the vulnerability of QR codes, so yes, your phone can be hacked.
However, protecting yourself from hacker attacks is quite simple, since we only need to resort to logical and reasonable thinking. What you have to do is not scan any suspicious code or that does not correspond to the establishment you visit, since cybercriminals design a specific QR code to access our personal information. So if we only scan those that are from trusted places or products, there should be no problem.
Protect your phone
Using logic alone is not always effective. When we scan a code, many of today’s smartphones will show us in advance information related to the web page to which that code redirects us. If your phone doesn’t provide you with additional details, you may be able to activate this feature if your device contains its own scanner. Otherwise, it is advisable to use applications such as Google Lens to avoid any damage to our mobile phone, as well as to our personal data.
Google Lens is an application that is factory installed on the vast majority of current mobile devices. If this is not the case, you can download it through the Play Store.
The positive thing about this software is that just by focusing on any code after clicking on the camera icon within the app, we will be shown relevant information about the link we are about to access. In this way, we will avoid any attack by hackers in a direct, easy and accessible way, keeping our information and device safe at all times.
