As technology advances, consumers dependency on their Smartphone
gets stronger. Smartphones have become more valuable to consumers because they
serve many purposes beyond a standard line of communication. In fact, the
dependency has become so severe there is now a phobia defined by the fear of
not having your phone, nomophobia.
Consumers not only store personal items on their phone likes pictures and
emails, but now use their phone to conduct business and banking transactions.
This has turned these gadgets into walking gold mines for two different
reasons. First, Smartphones have a monetary value that physical thieves find
desirable by pawning or selling. The more dangerous theft of the two is the
potential identity theft through your phone being in the wrong hands. Many apps
and mobile sites are designed to make logging in easy by storing personal
information which may make things more convenient, but certainly not safer . Not to mention, many consumers store passwords and personal
records in their phones for a quick point of reference.
In efforts to solve this problem, many app develop companies
have created programs that use GPS as a way to track and locate your phone if
it gets misplaces and/or stolen. While this technology
is very useful and can save users from the pain of replacing their phones, it
can also work against them in a very ironic way. The same technology that helps
users find their misplaced phones also makes it easier for mobile hackers to
access personal information. This is where the line between mobile
security and mobile privacy often gets confused. While GPS centric apps
help with mobile security, they also exploit privacy. As the mobile
security landscape shifts and adjusts to new standards, especially in the
regards to mobile
payments and banking, it will become easier for companies to keep up.
Perhaps that is the problem, right now mobile security is a step behind
hackers. Fraud prevention measures are taking steps after malicious activity
happens when it should be the other way around. By knowing the risks and
implementing fraud
prevention measures earlier, companies can help put security in front of
fraud.
[Contributed by EVS Marketing]