Smartphone users victims of scams_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Smartphone users victims of scams

However, Zhao said, this ease of use allows some people to come up with malicious codes.

No effective measures or rules have been released to control the growing misuse of the codes.

"We don't know who should be responsible for the loss -the cellphone operators or the government," Zhao said.

More than 351,000 links contained in matrix barcodes were found to be dangerous and about 2,550 viruses were detected by the end of February, according to statistics from a Tencent antivirus program, which means 1.5 out of every 100 smartphone users may be attacked by a virus or access malware when scanning matrix barcodes.

As such cases increase, some people are holding off using the codes.

"I am reluctant to scan matrix barcodes recently, because you don't know how to identify whether they contain malicious codes or not until you read it with your phone," said Bao Lili, from Zhangjiakou city, who previously liked to scan codes for discounts such as 5 yuan off the price of a movie ticket.

But the 29-year-old now refuses to scan codes because one of her colleagues lost about 300 yuan after accidentally installing malicious software.

"She didn't get her money back because she didn't know whom she could claim the loss from," she said.

Considering the ease with which codes can be made and their lack of supervision, Zhang Zhiyu warned users to be careful when scanning.

Li Yuxiao, a professor of social networks from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, agreed with him, adding that it is better to scan matrix codes from regular websites instead of from posters on the street or other sources.