Zholia Alemi’s fake degree certificate from the University of Auckland allowed her to work for NHS trusts and private providers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  The woman who pretended to be a qualified psychiatrist to work illegally for more than 20 years has been jailed for fraud.  Alemi was caught only after trying […]

Foreign beef sold as British beef in the UK – There is a (British) app for that. On Friday 10th March 2023, numerous news-sites reported a national food fraud probe by the Food Standards Agency in connection to fraudulent beef products and the immediate removal from retailers’ shelves (see Food Fraud link below). The Australian […]

Are you paying someone else’s energy bill? When a handy shortcut goes wrong… I have been paying someone else’s energy bill for the last 6 months, by mistake.  Ovo Energy had a shortcut in their customer experience, that makes identifying a person fast and straightforward. After all, no one wants to spend longer on a call […]

QR codes easily shared to dodge fares in Holland, leaving rail staff threatened and intimidated. The QR codes are used on day tickets on Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Netherlands national railway company). The QR codes are being copied and shared, with staff being left to enforce the flawed QR system according to the Federation of Dutch Trade […]

Why Hacked QR Codes are Dangerous The real problem with QR code hackers is how versatile and useful a QR code can be. A legitimate or hacked QR code can do more than open a web link. These code squares have the potential to achieve a wide variety of both useful and dangerous actions on […]

QR code manipulation has become a particularly pernicious threat as it preys on our desire to perform tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. Silicon Valley Bank (The bank where the Silicon Valley folk go for mortgages, corporate checking venture funding, treasury services, etc.) recently published an article highlighting the rise of Cybercrime and how […]

Great news from UP, India – 242 people didn’t die. Their death certificates were forged, and the death benefits were paid by the insurance company. It was only the insurance company audit processes that found the QR fraud. QR codes are easy to use, inexpensive, and easy to Counterfeit. As system designers all of us […]

£95.00 per second / 1.3 Billion per year lost to fraud in the UK According to the Sun newspaper, and likely to be under reported. The feature link below identifies “12 sneaky ways crooks can scam you this Christmas”. Inevitably it includes romance and QR fraud, and some steps users can try to avoid it. […]

It’s nearly Christmas and every parent’s nightmare…. The pandemic is over, we have gone from homemade cloth masks to medical grade masks if we still need them, and we all know to look for the reassuring ‘CE’ logo. Not only masks, but toys, medical devices, car parts, safety shoes and so many other products – […]

“…the risks of using QR codes, and today people have only begun to understand the risks of smart cameras.” The pandemic taught people how to use QR codes, now the bad guys are catching up. Interesting article from Enterprise Security Mag talks about what the data threatscape will look like in 2023. The problem with […]

QR code fraud comes to the isle of wight. Same method as elsewhere, leave a QR code in a public place, like on a parking meter – then people see the QR code, scan the QR code have their money taken away. Countermark is an easy to print encrypted data carrier, we keep people safe […]

It was great to visit the AMPC Showcase in Melbourne, Australia to present the AMPC sponsored project that uses Countermark to implement Farm to Plate / Plate to Farm traceability. The best bit was meeting many of the great people who care deeply about Aussieproduce, and saw the AMPC Showcase as a way of finding better ways […]