Mobile Application Developers Face Security Challenges

Mobile banking has been on the rise. In July, IDC reported mobile banking use doubled in between its annual surveys on the topic.

But the growth in popularity may not be matched by a growth in security, something underscored by problems recently reported in mobile applications from a variety of high-profile companies, including Wells Fargo and PayPal. The problems – reported here by viaForensics – include a failure to securely store passwords and usernames, and according to some, paint a not so rosy state of mobile application security.

“The mobile device itself cannot be considered to be trusted, devices are lost and stolen all the time,” opined Richard Wang, manager of SophosLabs, the research arm of security firm Sophos. “I think these incidents show that the comparative lack of experience of mobile developers when it comes to security considerations. Threats against the PC existed long before online banking became commonplace so developers had to build in security from the start…storing usernames and passwords in plain text on the device is a rookie mistake.”