Hooked: A Real-World Study on QR Code Phishing
Marvin Geisler, Daniela P\"ohn

TL;DR
This study investigates the effectiveness of QR code phishing attacks in real-world settings, revealing that professionally designed codes attract more attention and pose significant risks, especially to non-technical users.
Contribution
It provides empirical evidence on QR code phishing effectiveness and user perceptions, highlighting the need for improved countermeasures against this attack vector.
Findings
Professional QR codes attract more user attention
Curious users scan QR codes more frequently
Technical awareness reduces phishing susceptibility
Abstract
The usage of quick response (QR) codes was limited in the pre-era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the widespread and frequent application since then, this opened up an attractive phishing opportunity for malicious actors. They trick users into scanning the codes and redirecting them to malicious websites. In order to explore whether phishing with QR codes is another successful attack vector, we conducted a real-world phishing campaign with two different QR code variants at a research campus. The first version was rather plain, whereas the second version was more professionally designed and included the possibility to win a voucher. After the study was completed, a qualitative survey on phishing and QR codes was conducted to verify the results of the phishing campaign. Both, the phishing campaign and the survey, show that a professional design receives more attention. They also…
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