QR Codes Engineered into Cybersecurity Protection

QR, or Quick Response, codes – those commonly black and white boxes that people scan with a smartphone to learn more about something – have been used to convey information about everything from cereals to cars and new homes. But, University of Connecticut (UConn) researchers think the codes have a greater potential: protecting national security. Using advanced 3-D optical imaging and extremely low light photon counting encryption, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Bahram Javidi and his research team have taken the ordinary QR code and transformed it into a high-end cybersecurity application that can be used to protect the integrity of computer microchips. The findings were published in IEEE Photonics Journal.