Tag: mobile security

Apple appears to be making considerable steps toward smartphone based payments.

Patents, reports, and rumors are coming together to provide a continually increasing body of evident that suggests that the iPhone 6, which is expected to be released this fall, will include a mobile wallet to allow owners to be able to use their smartphones to pay for purchases.

This will make Apple a rather late entrant into the mobile payments market space.

Despite this fact, a mobile wallet in an i-device is likely to have a massive impact on the small but growing trend. Many people believe that this is the addition required to bring mobile payments into the mainstream. This may also help to encourage increased use of struggling services such as Isis and Google Wallet.

More evidence of a possible iPhone 6 mobile wallet was generated by Apple’s talks with Visa.

Reports have now been published that have indicated that Apple has entered into discussions with Visa as well as a number of other credit card companies regarding the creation of mobile payments partnerships.

If the electronics giant does go ahead with this technology, it would mean that users of its smartphones would be able to use their devices to be able to complete mobile transactions. Therefore, even when purchasing physical goods in brick and mortar retail stores, they will still be able to pay at the checkout counter using the device instead of a credit card.

At the same time a digital wallet would also give the upcoming iPhone’s users the opportunity to use that same type of transaction to pay for products that they purchase online and in apps. This would convert the smartphone into a direct connection to credit card companies for making payments. This could help consumers and retailers, alike, in being able to save money by avoiding the third party transaction processing fees that are paid in traditional credit card based purchases.

The main focus for Apple mobile wallets would be on security, as the company has reportedly added a secure hardware element to their upcoming devices, though it is unknown whether that will be based upon NFC technology or another option altogether.

Researchers have discovered that a great deal of data held by these smartphones can be extracted from them.

According to a recent mobile security acknowledgement from Apple, it is possible for its employees to be able to use previously unpublicized techniques in order to be able to extract data from consumer iPhones, such as contact lists, photos, and other types of personal data such as text messages.

The equivalent techniques could also be applied by law enforcement to work around backup encryption.

This same mobile security sidestepping technique could be applied by others who have “trusted” forms of computers to which the iPhones have been connected. This according to an expert in privacy and security who brought about the admission from the tech giant. Last week, at a presentation that took place in a conference, Jonathan Zdziarski, a researcher, demonstrated how the services were capable of accessing considerable quantities of data by way of diagnostic services that Apple has said are meant for use by engineers.

The researcher said that iPhone users are not told when this mobile security and private data access is occurring.

Zdziarski also stated that there is no way for users to disable the services or prevent them from running. This means that there is no way for the user of an iPhone to know which computers have already been labeled as a trusted device by way of the backup process and these users cannot choose to stop future connections. He stated that “There’s no way to `unpair’ except to wipe your phone.” He then went about demonstrating that he was capable of extracting private data from a locked phone through the use of a computer with trusted status.

Although some have stated that they feel that this is evidence that the National Security Agency and Apple are collaborating with each other, Apple has denied all claims that they have constructed any type of “back doors” to their mobile security be used by intelligence agencies. A statement from the company said that “We have designed iOS so that its diagnostic functions do not compromise user privacy and security, but still provides needed information to enterprise IT departments, developers and Apple for troubleshooting technical issues.”