Security Aspects
Survey participants for the survey done by Federal Reserve show their concern about the security measures of mobile banking and payment. Federal Reserve shares that, “despite the increasing prevalence of mobile banking and mobile payments, a significant share of consumers believes the technology to be unsafe or do not know how safe it is” (2016, pg 21). There are many different security concerns. One mentioned by a journalist from the NBC News, Nicole Spector, explains that marketers can use the mobile app user’s public information to target them. When using mobile payment apps such as Venmo, users can caption the payment when sending money with emojis and text. Although it’s entertaining to see the emojis, some of the details are “clear value to potential marketers” (2018). It is mentioned in Esther Swilley’s (2010) study that the “the negative influence of security and privacy on attitudes” toward mobile banking applications were equivalent to both non-mobile banking users and mobile banking users (pg 308). This shows another security concern from mobile banking is the service being hacked and having personal information along with bank information being stolen.
Alexey V. Bataev shares the types of liabilities when it comes to using mobile banking. According to Bataev, the three main vulnerabilities from mobile banking are physical access to the consumer’s device, attack “man in the middle,” “MitM”, and download of a malicious program to the consumer’s device in various ways (2017). Accidentally forgetting your phone or even dropping your phone causes a criminal to pick up that phone and access to the file system on your device. If the application “stores, the identification data or other sensitive data in clear text, or data ‘funneling’ in the clear, it is easy for an attacker to obtain this information and steal money” (Bataev, 2017, pg 147). Another way the consumer’s banking information might get hacked is by the attack of “man in the middle” (MitM). Bataev explains that this attack means that the data between the consumer’s device and the server are intercepted. This raises concern regarding untrusted Wi-Fi networks. Bataev states that for the purpose of MitM, it is “necessary to be in one network with the victim whether that is in public network Wi-Fi or using fake wireless access points” (2017, pg 147). In the result of MitM, the criminal can have access and replace the transmitted data that results in theft of money from the consumer’s account. Lastly, another type of vulnerability Bataev mentions is the download of a malicious program to the consumer’s device. The criminal can “steal sensitive data of mobile banking user or sensitive data of payment transaction” by installing malicious applications on the device and getting remote access with full access rights (Bataev, 2017, pg 147). The different types of ways a criminal can access one’s mobile banking information is frightening and concerning. To prevent and protect one’s information, it is important to encrypt data and if needed, reset data and implement control of security or the mobile banking and payment applications, as well as, mobile device.











