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Millions of consumers no longer visit a bank to deposit your smartphone or your tablet – at home, at the airport,
checks or conduct financial transactions; instead they rely during a few moments of downtime at this conference –
on the convenience of using their mobile devices to send and of course in your hotel room tonight.

money, view account balances and bank online. The same
But the growth of mobile banking and retail apps also
is true for how they spend their money – the shift from
means that more people are at risk for identity theft and
brick and mortar to e-commerce to m-commerce is already
the hacking of sensitive personal and transaction data by
well underway.
cyber criminals to commit fraud. These apps are used on
Think about it – how many times do you use your devices that often aren�t safeguarded from security holes.
smartphone to research a product or purchase one� Do
you Uber� That�s an mCommerce transaction happening “Unfortunately,

as you�re getting a lift to your hotel from the Moscone
Center during the RSA Conference 2015. Maybe you�re very few
going out to dinner tonight and you�ve already filled your
Apple Pay, Google Wallet or other wallet technology with consumers read
all of your credit card information. Ever wonder if you
could be pickpocketed wirelessly� Could an app you trust through the list of
already be stealing your personally identifiable information
permissions that
(PII)� Sadly, the answer is yes.

Many financial institutions and retailers have launched
mobile apps in the past 18 months to respond to demands an app requests”
from their customers who want the convenience of 24-
hour, any-time/any-where banking and shopping. Mobile
banking apps help build customer loyalty, and mobile Most people have between 30 and 75 apps on their mobile
banking transactions are significantly cheaper for banks device, and of course, when apps are installed on a device,

compared with transactions that require employee users must grant multiple permissions for accessing a
interaction. device�s location, SMS capabilities, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,
camera and other device resources. Some of these resource
Mobile retail apps capture consumers� buying impulse at are used for the apps to do their intended task, but often
the moment they occur, and allow for easy comparison apps demand resources that can open up a device to
shopping – the potential for finding an item cheaper is a security vulnerabilities.
quick tap away. Because more and more banks and

retailers are making the investment to develop a mobile Unfortunately, very few consumers read through the list
app, having one has gone from being a competitive of permissions that an app requests when they install it onto
differentiator to a �must have� to compete for consumers� their mobile device to make sure that an app isn�t asking
business. for permissions to use device resources which might be
suspicious.
And once a bank has made that investment, there is a
concerted effort to encourage customers to use their mobile This issue is highlighted by a report from Gartner which

banking platform. The same holds true for retail. Amazon concluded that 75% of the apps in the major app stores fail
and others will do anything to get you to shop online from basic security tests. Gartner defines this as an app using
mobile device resources which have nothing to do with the

CYBER DEFENSE MAGAZINE - ANNUAL EDITION 3