Less than half of mobile phones apps passed a digital firm's security audit. One out of four failed and a third have less serious problems, discovered a test by viaForensics, a digital forensics and security firm.
"There is a serious potential threat for identity or financial theft if a lost smart phone should fall into the wrong hands," the study concluded.
"For instance, if a cybercriminal is able to steal one password, coupled with all of the usernames recovered, would pose a serious threat for someone who uses the same password on many accounts."
Testers easily obtained passwords, PINs, partial credit card numbers, and other sensitive financial data from the smart phones. The tests show that smart phone apps in general often store sensitive data without encryption.
Financial apps, which failed the test 25 percent of the time, are safer than social networking apps, which failed 75 percent of the time.
User names are an important piece of financial information that phone apps should protect. Because many systems need only a user name and password, having the user name means a cyber criminal is half way to hacking your phone. Plus, many people reuse their user name.
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Source: moneynews.com
By: Michael King
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