Security threats affecting user-data on transit in mobile banking applications: A review

Abstract

Mobile banking technology is beneficial to customers because it is convenient for conducting bank services remotely. Newer channels used for mobile banking such as mobile banking applications have been developed as an innovation that is utilized to offer traditional banking services remotely such as money withdrawals, deposits, cheque book requests among others. This saves time and costs of going to physical banking halls and having to wait in long queues. However, utilization of mobile banking applications to access remote banking services is not immune from malicious attackers who steal users’ data such as login credentials and use them to access the users’ accounts and steal money. Securing user data on transit is important to mobile banking application users. It is also important to protect user data from online profile stealing which often leads to losing money from customers due to cyber thieves. This paper used descriptive research approach and desktop research and reviewed emerging security threats in mobile banking applications. It also identified and analyzed the cutting edge mechanisms available to mitigate security threats, and lists some of the pertinent open research issues.