Egress insights on why cybercriminals use quishing include:

Widespread mobile user adoption— the number of unique mobile phone users is estimated to surpass 5.61 billion globally. Between 2022 and 2025, the number of consumers in the U.S. who scan QR codes with their smartphones is predicted to increase by 16 million.
Ease of use— creating QR codes is straightforward and low cost, thanks to numerous online generators, mobile apps, and APIs that require little-to-no expertise. This accessibility expands the pool of potential threat actors, including those who may lack advanced technical skills.
To evade evolving detection technologies— organizations are shifting away from traditional detection technologies like secure email gateways (SEGs), which rely on blocklists to identify malicious links, toward intelligent cloud-based solutions. Attackers are adapting by employing obfuscation techniques to mask their hyperlinks, including link shorteners, typo-squatting, and quishing.

In 2023, cyber claims stemming from email attacks grew by 24%. Larger companies with annual revenue greater than $100 million saw the highest overall increase in frequency with three times more email claims than companies under $25 million. The three top most-targeted industries for email crime in 2023 and the first half of 2024 were manufacturing, finance and law firms.

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