Recently Malwarebytes Labs researchers have been seeing quite a few phishing campaigns using QR codes in email attachments. The lure and the targets are varied, but the use of a QR code to get someone to visit the phishing site is fast becoming a preferred method for cybercriminals.
There are several reasons why cybercriminals might want to use QR codes:
- The QR code is likely to be scanned with a phone, which are often less well protected against malicious websites or even completely unprotected.
- Phones are also likely personal devices which provide attackers with a direct path to sensitive personal accounts. For example, banking apps will be often be installed on the same device.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labs
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Marquis confirms data breach, point finger of blame at SonicWall firewall
January 30, 2026
Marquis, a US fintech company building software for banks and credit unions, has confirmed suffering a ransomware attack and losing sensitive customer data, but shifted the blame onto its firewall provider, SonicWall. In mid-September 2025, SonicWall warned its firewall customers to reset their passwords after unnamed threat actors brute-forced their way into the company’s MySonicWall ...
- Ivanti patched two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in EPMM
January 30, 2026
Ivanti has patched two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in its Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) product that are already being exploited, continuing a grim run of January security incidents for enterprise IT vendors. In January 2025, tens of thousands were urged to patch a Fortinet zero-day, while Ivanti customers were doing the same. There has been little change ...
- Supply chain attack on eScan antivirus: detecting and remediating malicious updates
January 29, 2026
On January 20, a supply chain attack has occurred, with the infected software being the eScan antivirus developed by an Indian company MicroWorld Technologies. The previously unknown malware was distributed through the eScan update server. The same day, our security solutions detected and prevented cyberattacks involving this malware. On January 21, having been informed by Morphisec, ...
- Microsoft Office zero-day lets malicious documents slip past security checks
January 29, 2026
Microsoft issued an emergency patch for a high-severity zero-day vulnerability in Office that allows attackers to bypass document security checks and is being exploited in the wild via malicious files. Microsoft pushed the emergency patch for the zero‑day, tracked as CVE-2026-21509, and classified it as a “Microsoft Office Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability” with a CVSS score ...
- CISA: Fortinet Releases Guidance to Address Ongoing Exploitation of Authentication Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2026-24858
January 28, 2026
Newly disclosed vulnerability Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)-2026-24858 allows malicious actors with a FortiCloud account and a registered device to log in to separate devices registered to other users in FortiOS, FortiManager, FortiWeb, FortiProxy, and FortiAnalyzer, if FortiCloud single sign on (SSO) is ...
- SoundCloud data breach hit 29.8 million accounts
January 28, 2026
TechRadar now have confirmation exactly how many people were affected by the December 2025 breach at SoundCloud, as well as how users can check if they are affected. In mid-December 2025, SoundCloud confirmed suffering a cyberattack and losing sensitive data on about 20% of its user base – approximately 28 million people. The company did not ...