Security problems turn a third of users off mobile banking

Petaling Jaya, November 18, 2013 - According to the Kaspersky Consumer Security Risks survey conducted by B2B International with Kaspersky Lab in the summer of 2013, almost one third of users do not feel safe making e-payments on their smartphones or tablets. They do not trust the reliability of mobile device protection when shopping or banking online.

E-stores, e-payments and e-banking systems have made many financial tasks easier. You can pay your bills, purchase hard-to-find items, and make transactions with a few clicks of the mouse - without wasting time in queues.

The widespread use of smartphones and tablets makes online banking even more convenient: the portability and functionality of these gadgets means you can manage it all not only at home or in the office, but anywhere you can find Internet access or a phone signal. Not all smartphone and tablet owners understand the benefits of accessing your money while on the go, and it seems many are hesitant to embrace mobile banking technology.

Paranoid about Android
The B2B International survey shows that 33% of respondents would never use a mobile device for making online transactions, such as paying for goods in online stores. A slightly smaller, but still considerable proportion of smartphone and tablet owners (28%) do not feel comfortable using their devices for online banking. And only 22% of tablet and 27% of smartphone users are unconcerned about entering financial information from their gadgets. The results of the survey are not surprising: 84% of smartphone owners (iPhone owners are not included) and 74% of tablet owners (iPad owners are not included) use Android-based devices.

Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system and therefore is most frequently attacked by cybercriminals, which makes sense, since the more users to target, the easier it is for fraudsters to get illegal income. According to Kaspersky Lab, 99% of all existing mobile malware samples are developed for Android. In 2012, the company’s experts found 35,000 malware samples for Android. In the first six month of 2013 that number soared to more than 47,000.

These numbers have persuaded some users to ditch these devices altogether, never mind using them for online financial transactions - 13% of those surveyed reported they would not use Android for this particular reason.

Fake Android apps for online banking operations, phishing attacks, and malicious attacks developed to intercept the data the user enters via the keyboard are some of the malicious tools that have often been used to attack the owners of Android-based devices.

Industry-leading Antivirus Software One can hardly blame smartphone and tablet owners for being excessively cautious while using financial services. However, despite the growing number of threats for Android, users can safely make mobile payments by protecting their device with a reliable security solution.

Banking & shopping – easy & secure In order to prevent users of Android-based devices from falling victim to cybercriminals, including financial fraudsters, Kaspersky Lab has developed Kaspersky Internet Security for Android, an easyto-use security solution with a variety of protection mechanisms capable of providing high security for mobile device owners.

The advanced malware detection technologies incorporated in this solution prevent the installation of spyware which imitates banking applications, even if the program was downloaded from the official Google Play store. The integrated anti-phishing module detects and blocks fake banking, e-store and e-pay pages which fraudsters often use to trick victims into handing over login credentials and account information. Another special function of Kaspersky Internet Security for Android is the ability to check web links received via text messages, protecting users from malicious attacks via mass mailings of short messages often utilized by cybercriminals.

Kaspersky Lab’s solution provides reliable protection against almost any threats - including those which target users’ money.

Kaspersky Internet Security for Android is available to download from the official Kaspersky Lab site and the Google Play apps store. Additionally, the solution is integrated in Kaspersky Internet Security – Multi-Device, a product developed to protect several mobile devices working on different operating systems.