CIOIN

Mobile malware is increasingly beginning to dominate the security landscape. And as mobile commerce gains popularity, the platform is bound to be even more vulnerable. Will this thwart the m-commerce initiatives of the BFSI sector? Sneha Jha spoke to Faraz Ahmed, head-IS and regional IT, Reliance Life Insurance, about the mobile malware threat plaguing the financial sector.

What's the state of mobile malware in the BFSI sector?
Malware for mobile technology has seen an increase of 273 percent in the first half of 2011 compared to the same period last year. If there are gaping security holes, the financial services industry can become a soft target for potential malware attacks. What’s alarming about mobile banking is the speed of transactions. These transactions happen on a real-time basis and if you are not savvy you might click on an application that is spoofed and can bring a Trojan down to your device.

So, how do we fix this?  
 The industry should come up with standards and controls that will assure a reasonable amount of security on mobile devices. One platform that does this reasonably well is the Apple app store, where every application needs to be submitted for a review before it gets published on the app store. This is one good way of keeping the bad guys out and provide end users the assurance that an application is safe.

How should organizations protect themselves from malware threats?
The same controls that are usually implemented on an e-commerce platform are deployed on the mobile platform as well. Some technologies provide a sandbox environment on the mobile to facilitate business, and this is an interesting but expensive approach. An organization intending to go the m-commerce way needs to carefully evaluate its risk appetite.