Police warn of terrifying new one-step scam that allows a hacker into your phone within seconds
Topics: Police, Technology, Phones
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@fitbocop1914/Getty/boonchai wedmakawand
Topics: Police, Technology, Phones
A police officer has spoken out to warn people of a scam which sees all the information on your phone made accessible to scammers in just one single step.
You may think you're a twenty-something-year-old and smart enough to recognize all scams, but with technology developing quicker and smarter by the day, it's important to stay afloat of all the latest tricks up scammers' sleeves. And this one may well catch you out.
Thankfully, police officer Bo Braxton Da Savage - who goes by @fitbocop1914 - has taken to Instagram to raise awareness of the latest sneaky scam which has been going around.
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Taking to his social media page on August 28, he explained he just caught wind of a 'pretty smart scam' which is going around, which Bo admits 'would've got' him had he not been made aware of it.
And this particular scam involves scammers sending free gifts in the mail. Now, this may sound confusing, why would a scammer send you a free gift? But that's exactly what they want you to think.
Bo explains the package may say it's from a company you recognize and will further lull you into a false sense of security by having your full name and address on.
Although, the officer notes it 'won't have a return sender on it' - I shouldn't need to explain that one.
Bo continues: "So what's going to happen is, you get the package, you're going to look at it and think, 'Aw okay someone sent you a gift'. There's going to be a QR code on the package or in the package.
"[...] And you're going to scan the QR code and once you scan the QR code every bit of information in your phone is going to get sent to the scammer - it's going to send your credit card information, your bank information, your pictures, your phone numbers, your contacts. Everything that's in your phone, after you scan that QR code, is going to get sent to the scammer."
Indeed, a cybersecurity expert has previously spoken out about the dangerous of whipping out your phone and scanning QR codes willy-nilly.
Adrianus Warmenhoven from NordVPN explained once you scan a dodgy QR code, if you have an 'unpatched browser' or one with a vulnerability and the QR code takes you to your phone's browser, which takes you to the page linked in by an attacker, then an attacker can 'take over and infect the system' on your device.
And what's even scarier is you probably won't realize your phone has been accessed by the scammer either.
Warmenhoven ultimately warns to treat QR codes as suspiciously as you'd treat any other sort of link.