BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Inside Secure (Paris:INSD) (Euronext Paris: INSD), at the heart of security solutions for mobile and connected devices, and UL, global leader in safeguarding security, compliance and global interoperability, today revealed at the annual Mobey Day in Barcelona the findings of their joint research into the state of security of mobile banking applications. The results should serve as a wake-up call for the entire banking industry to raise their sense of urgency on increasing security, particulary with increasing concern from consumers and legislative mandates such as GDPR looming on the horizon.
Hardly a day goes by without another security breach or cyber-attack, to the point that it is not news anymore. And the growing complexity and fragmentation of the current environment is only increasing the exposure and risk to organizations. Yet unlike the world of mobile payment applications, which is harmonized and standard thanks to mandates to be evaluated by third party accredited laboratories, banking and financial institutions are not held to a security standard. Thus, it is unclear how much banks and financial institutions understand the security risk in their mobile applications and the potential exposure it brings. Mobile banking is more of a greenfield, absent of a compliance requirement. Consequently, very few rely on external risk assessments and security evalutations.
The research of UL and Inside Secure set out to measure where mobile banking applications stand with respect to security as compared with mobile payment applications, to provide a well known reference point of comparison. They analyzed publicly available m-banking applications. The results show that mobile banking was the weak link in most banks’ security infrastructure.
What the companies have discovered is that it is a safe strategy to expect that the worst will happen in terms of a security breach and prepare your organization accordingly, just like a fire drill. It’s also important to have a remediation plan to solve a security breach both technically and from an image perspective.
It’s critical to address the process and secure development life cycle in the m-banking application. The real risk remediation is in how quickly you react and adapt to the new attacks and flaws that will differentiate you in the market. When you select your software protection architecture and solutions, keep in mind to evaluate beyond the level of assurance of the module and architecture, but also the design and the attention and reactivity you receive. It is not recommended to build security solutions in-house. Rather, it is best to rely on a proven solution that gets exposed via their broad install base, and has teams dedicated to securing mobile applications. When you look at the fast pace of new operating systems, hardware and new attack techniques, it is increasingly challenging to keep up to date with the same team.
UL and Inside Secure also advise to not reinvent the wheel; use partners that have experience in mobile banking security so they can support you in validating your decisions and scenarios. It is also safer to have your solution assessed as early as possible in its development and get an external security evaluation to get an unbiased report from a team of experts that are dedicated to continuous security. This will bring a higher level of confidence to banks and to their customers.
“Everything is moving to mobile. To deploy a mobile banking application successfully, the functionality, security and usability must be carefully designed, tested and validated,” said Arman Aygen, International Business Development director at UL. “While the adoption rate and innovation in the field is promising, now more than ever, businesses can never be too confident about security and should not take shortcuts needed to secure their mobile banking applications.”
“While we see there are gaps today in the security of many m-banking applications, it’s not all doom and gloom,” said Neal Michie, product manager, Payment and Application Protection at Inside Secure. “There are many examples of good practices that banks can learn from and widely available solutions on the market that can help make their solutions more secure.”
About Inside Secure
Inside Secure (Euronext Paris – INSD) is
at the heart of security solutions for mobile and connected devices,
providing software, silicon IP, tools and know-how needed to protect
customers’ transactions, content, applications, and communications. With
its deep security expertise and experience, the company delivers
products having advanced and differentiated technical capabilities that
span the entire range of security requirement levels to serve the
demanding markets of network security, IoT security, content &
application protection, mobile payment & banking. Inside Secure’s
technology protects solutions for a broad range of customers including
service providers, content distributors, security system integrators,
device makers and semiconductor manufacturers. For more information,
visit www.Insidesecure.com
About UL’s Transaction Security services
UL’s Transaction Security division guides companies within the mobile, payments, and transit domains through the complex world of electronic transactions. UL is the global leader in safeguarding security, compliance, and global interoperability. Offering advice, training, compliance and interoperability services, security services, and test tools, during the full life cycle of your product development process or the implementation of new technologies. UL’s people proactively collaborate with industry players to define robust standards and policies. Bringing global expertise to your local needs. UL has accreditations from industry bodies including Visa, MasterCard, Discover, JCB, American Express, EMVCo, UnionPay, PCI, GCF, GlobalPlatform, NFC Forum, and many others. For more information, go to ul-ts.com
About UL
UL fosters safe living and working conditions for people everywhere through the application of science to solve safety, security and sustainability challenges. The UL Mark engenders trust enabling the safe adoption of innovative new products and technologies. Everyone at UL shares a passion to make the world a safer place. We test, inspect, audit, certify, validate, verify, advise and train and we support these efforts with software solutions for safety and sustainability. To learn more about us, visit UL.com.
About Mobey Forum
Mobey Forum is the global industry association empowering banks and
other financial institutions to lead in the future of digital financial
services.
Mobey Forum connects industry thought leaders to identify
commercial drivers for the development of better digital commerce. Mobey
Forum’s members collaborate to analyse business strategies and
technologies to create innovative, interoperable and competitive digital
financial services.