Tag: mobile security

ING introduces new feature for its banking app that will make mobile payments more convenient

Dutch bank ING has introduced a new service that will allow its customers to make mobile payments using their voices. The service is being incorporated into its mobile banking application and is meant to serve as a more convenient way to make payments without having to enter a password. The service is designed to highlight the convenient nature of mobile payments, which are becoming more popular in the Netherlands as well as other parts of the world.

Voice activation will bring more security to banking app

ING customers can use the new feature of their mobile banking application to speak a short phrase, which will be used to activate a mobile transaction. Users will pre-record the phrase for the application and this phrase will be stored as a file on their mobile device. ING believes that voice activation will add another layer of security to mobile payments, as a person’s voice can be as unique as their fingerprint. This is due to differences in vocal cavities and how different mouth movements can affect the sound of the voice.

Speech recognition is becoming more popular in the mobile commerce space

Nuance, a biometric company, is providing the speech-recognition technology that ING is using for the new service. Similar technology is used by several other organizations in order to determine the identity of consumers. The U.S. government, for instance, use speech recognition technology in cases where agencies are handling tax issues. This technology is largely used to reduce the prevalence of fraud and has been relatively successful in doing so in recent years.

Biometric technology could help mobile commerce appeal to consumers

Making mobile payments more secure has become a major priority for banks around the world. These banks have become heavily involved in the mobile commerce space, but consumers have voiced their concerns regarding their financial information. Biometric technology is expected to put many of these concerns to rest, which may make mobile payments significantly more attractive to consumers throughout the world.

A bug that can infect that operating system can spread itself with nothing more than one text message.

Smartphones that run on the Android operating system are now at risk of an important mobile security flaw that could allow a properly infected text message to take over the device.

It is currently estimated that nearly 1 billion devices around the world are vulnerable to this bug.

According to mobile security experts, this flaw is now considered to be “the word Android vulnerability in the mobile OS history.” Zimperium researchers that focus on this type of issue were among those who initially released details regarding this threat, which has been called “Stagefright.” This threat is dangerous enough that it can infect an Android based smartphone simply through the receipt of an MMS message, regardless of whether or not the device user actually opens it.

Once the text is received, the mobile security bug activates a code which releases full control of the device to an attacker.

This Android bug gives the attacker control over everything from the camera and microphone to the data on the device, which can then be copied. In their blog releasing information about Stagefright, the Zimperium researchers explained that “These issues in Stagefright code critically expose 95 per cent of Android devices, an estimated 950 million devices.”

While Google has already issued a repair for the security flaw for its Android operating system, many carriers and phone makers haven’t yet released the update to consumers.

The problem, itself, was first spotted back in April by Zimperium’s Joshua Drake. Drake received recognition for this discovery by Google, when the company released a statement saying “We thank Joshua Drake for his contributions. The security of Android users is extremely important to us and so we responded quickly and patches have already been provided to partners that can be applied to any device.”

Google also took care to point out the mobile security steps that are already in place for devices that run on its operating system. It pointed out that the majority of Android based devices, including all of the ones running on the newer versions of the OS, include a number of different technologies that have been “designed to make exploitation more difficult.” Among them is an app sandbox that is meant to help to keep user data and other device apps protected.