 |
|
|
|||||
QR codes have become a convenience of modern life. Just scan the black and white mosaic with your phones camera and you can do everything from connect to your hotel room Wi-Fi to pay for that public parking space to pull up a restaurant menu. But QR codes can also leave you vulnerable. Thats because scammers, organized criminal gangs, and shady nation-states are using the unassuming tech to get you to hand over your data unwittingly. Heres how theyre doing it, and how you can protect yourself. People love the convenience of QR codesbut so do scammers Its hard to believe that something nefarious can lie within a QR code, but it can. In order to understand why, it helps to know how a QR code works. Short for quick response code, a QR code is essentially a more advanced version of UPC bar codes that have been found on packaged products for decades. An old-school UPC code (short for universal product code) is a one-dimensional image composed of vertical bars of different widths that represent different numbers. When the barcode is scanned, the numbers are read and compared with a database to identify the related product. QR codes are two-dimensional images with glyphs of various sizes that store not just numbers, but text. When scanned, your phone extracts the encoded information and can act on it. For example, QR codes often embed URLs, allowing you to scan, say, a parking meter to launch a webpage where you can pay online. For sure, this is a lot more convenient than manually typing a URL into your phones browser to load the payment page. But our desire forand unquestioning acceptance ofthis convenience is now being exploited by scammers through what has become known as quishing. The growing threat of quishing Increasingly, everyone from scammers to nation-states are trying to exploit our willingness to use QR codes. They do this by embedding malicious links in them and sending them to a person via email, often purporting to be from their bank or an online service they use. Alternatively, individual malicious actors have been known to print QR codes with malicious links embedded and physically place them over authentic QR codes on parking meters, restaurant tables, and in hotel rooms. Unsuspecting individuals then scan these QR codes, not realizing that the URL embedded in them leads to a scam site designed to mimic the real one. These look-alike sites are designed to steal the users login credentials, credit card details, or other sensitive data. If this sounds a lot like the old school phishing weve been dealing with since the dawn of the internet, thats because it isjust updated for a QR-coded world, hence the term quishing. How to protect yourself from fake QR codes Quishing is becoming a growing problem, but there are ways you can protect yourself against it. The first is by adopting healthy skepticism about QR codes. Just because a QR code is on the hotel room nightstand, below the parking meter dial, or in an email that looks to be from your bank doesn’t mean its benign. Understanding that is your first step toward protecting yourself. The next step is to carefully examine QR codes before scanning them. Scammers often place fake QR codes over real ones in the physical world. So, before you scan a QR code on a restaurant table, take a moment to inspect it for signs that it might be a sticker covering the authentic code. Look for rough edges, tears, or black squares from a deeper QR code showing through the white space, as these can indicate that the QR code isnt one you should be scanning. Likewise, be extremely cautious of QR codes you receive in emails, especially from senders purporting to be your financial institution or online services you useand particularly if these emails contain messages that use language like scan the code now to secure your account. Scammers rely on urgency to compel people to enter their login details hastily on fake websiteslogins the scammers will then use to access your accounts on the real website. Finally, never enter information on a web page that was loaded from a scanned QR code without first manually checking the URL in your web browser. The web page might look like your banks login screen, but a scam website will have a URL that doesnt match the authentic websites address. When in doubt as to whether a URL is authentic, its best to open up another browser window, do a Google search for the website in question, and click on the link Google gives you.
Category:
E-Commerce
Stablecoins that offer interest-bearing rewards may increasingly resemble bank deposits. But unlike traditional deposits, they lack the regulatory safeguards that undergird the banking system. That gap, according to JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum, risks creating what he calls a parallel banking system. The issue is already on lawmakers agenda. During JPMorgans fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, Evercore analyst Glenn Schorr noted that Congress is preparing to debate stablecoin policy, referencing a letter from the American Bankers Association that underscores the urgency of addressing a loophole around interest on stablecoins. Schorr added that Treasury estimated $6.6 trillion of bank deposits could be at risk if they dont close that loophole. Against this backdrop, Barnum zeroed in on the growing overlap between crypto productslike stablecoinsand traditional banking. The creation of a parallel banking system that sort of has all the features of banking, including something that looks a lot like a deposit that pays interest, without the associated prudential safeguards that have been developed over hundreds of years of bank regulation, is an obviously dangerous and undesirable thing, he said. Barnum stressed that his concern is not rooted in resisting competition or technological innovation. Instead, he argued that allowing deposit-like products to operate outside the regulatory framework banks must follow introduces systemic risk, creating an ecosystem with similar economic functions and vulnerabilities, but without the protections designed to safeguard consumers and the broader financial system. Clearly, there is some risk for some firms, maybe for many firms, and some version of a threat to the business model, he said. The JPMorgan CFO isnt rejecting crypto advancements entirely. Rather, hes warning against regulatory gaps. Weve been quite involved in the whole blockchain technology space for some time. As you know, we launched our first tokenized money market fund, he said. So I say that all by way of saying that we see the interesting developments in the space, the technological innovation. Were engaged. Were watching. We care. For Barnum, the debate ultimately comes down to consumer protection. As interest-bearing stablecoins grow in popularity, the question facing regulators is whether deposit-like products should carry deposit-like safeguards. Correction: This story originally misattributed Jeremy Barnums quotes to CEO Jamie Dimon. Leila Sheridan This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Category:
E-Commerce
The public outcry over artificial intelligence has largely focused on what it could mean for the average worker. Entry-level jobs in sectors like tech and finance have already been impacted by the rise of AI. And while economists have said the claims of workforce disruption are overblown at the moment, some companies are, in fact, making major cuts to their workforces in the name of AI. Just this week, Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut 40% of head count at the fintech company, citing efficiency gains from its adoption of AI tools. But its not just rank-and-file workers whose jobs may be on the line. As CEOs tout the vast potential of AIand make cuts to their workforces accordinglymany of them have suggested that they could be out of work soon, too. In a podcast interview this week, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi disclosed that some of his employees had built what they called Dara AI, an AI-generated approximation of their boss. They basically make the presentation to the Dara AI as a prep for making a presentation to me, Khosrowshahi shared on entrepreneur Steven Bartletts podcast The Diary of a CEO. Are you concerned they might show Dara AI to the board? Bartlett quipped. To which Khosrowshahi laughed and argued that AI was still missing a beat and could not yet replicate the ability to learn in real time. But when that changes, he said, that is the point at which Im going to think, yeah, we are all replaceable. Khosrowshahi might not be convinced that AI can supplant him just yetbut hes not the only CEO who sees a future where that might be the case. Shame on me if OpenAI is not the first big company run by an AI CEO, Sam Altman said on the Conversations with Tyler podcast last year. He claimed to often think about what would enable an AI CEO to do a much, much better job of running OpenAI than me?” At a conference last week, Altman doubled down on this idea. AI superintelligence at some point on its development curve would be capable of doing a better job being the CEO of a major company than any executivecertainly me, he said at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has suggested a CEOs job might be relatively simple in the hands of AI. I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things maybe for an AI to do one day, he told the BBC a few months ago. Within the next year, Pichai said, AI will be able to perform more complex tasks autonomously. Its not clear whether CEOs genuinely believe that their jobs could be replaced in the near future, or if this is largely another attempt to convince workers that its time to get on board with AI. After all, there is a huge disconnect between how tech leaders and CEOs talk about AI and what workers seem to feel: In 2025, a report from the Pew Research Center found that only about 17% of Americans expected AI to have a positive effect overall, while 43% said they anticipated being personally harmed by the technology. Then againit may not be an easy adjustment for every CEO, even among the most vocal AI evangelists. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has been outspoken about AI adoption and has cut his companys workforce in half over the last three years, in part by relying more heavily on AI (to varying results). He was less optimistic, however, about a world in which his role might cease to exist. To me, AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included, he said in a post on X last year. I am not necessarily super excited about this. On the contrary, my work to me is a super important part of who I am, and realizing it might become unnecessary is gloomy. But I also believe we need to be honest with what we think will happen.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||