Will fraudsters outsmart smartphones?
Would you feel safe purchasing goods with your credit card from your cell phone? If you answered “yes” then you’re in agreement with about half the respondents in a recent Harris Interactive survey reported by Internet Retailer who consider it “at least somewhat safe” to make a purchase through their cell phone.
Of course that presumes you are willing to overlook the inconvenience factor that goes with entering your credit card number and personal information on your cell phone—which depending on your cell phone can be a minor inconvenience or royal pain. According to the survey, “46% of cell phone owners said that, assuming they could purchase securely through cell phones, they’d be willing to make purchases this way.”
As smartphones like Apple’s iPhone get easier and consumer adoption increases it’s a fair bet that so will online purchases made from smartphones…and online banking…and social networking…and just about any web activity you would typically undertake on your computer today. Etailers and businesses that rely on customers to connect via their computer will undoubtedly invest more in technology to instill trust and confidence in smartphone users so they feel very safe interacting with them via their smartphones. While 46% may seem like a healthy number, I’m sure the survey results made more than a few etailers cringe.
As smartphones take on more everyday computing tasks they are also likely to become a desirable platform for fraudsters. Georgia Tech in its Emerging Cyber Threats Report for 2009 predicts as much. According to Patrick Traynor, an assistant professor at the university, “malware will be injected onto cell phones to turn them into bots.” He goes on to say “at this point, mobile device capability is far ahead of security….we’ll start to see the botnet problem infiltrate the mobile world in 2009.”
For now it pays to be extra careful when banking or buying from your smartphone. I’ll have more to say about mobile computing and fraud prevention in the coming weeks.
- Tom
