12/23/2024

QR Codes Are Everywhere — But Are They Safe for Payments?

PYMNTS

QR codes have become a common feature in retail, marketing and payment systems, changing the way businesses engage with consumers while offering convenience and efficiency.

As the adoption of QR codes has surged, so too have concerns about their security. Experts in the cybersecurity and retail industries offered insights to PYMNTS about the benefits and potential risks associated with QR codes, and how businesses and consumers can mitigate those risks.

The Rise of QR Codes: Convenience at Its Core

The popularity of QR codes in retail can be attributed to their simplicity and convenience.

“Businesses want to use the power of mobile phones that practically all consumers have with them, but many people find typing long URLs on their phone keyboards cumbersome,” Randy Pargman, senior director of threat detection at Proofpoint, explained to PYMNTS. “QR codes have been around for a while, used for shipping labels, but suffered from the fact that average people did not really know what to do with them, and they had to download an app to scan them. Since phone manufacturers started including QR scanning as a normal feature of the camera application in most phones and accelerated on by the contactless menus and other innovations that resulted from COVID restrictions, QR codes became easy, convenient and known to everyone.”