Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been encouraging the citizens of our Country to switch to digital payments through mobile gadgets. However, chipset maker Qualcomm has claimed that none of the mobile banking applications and e-wallets in India are fully secure. It said, none of these applications use hardware level security that helps in securing online transactions.
Qualcomm Senior Director Product Management S.Y. Choudhury told the reporters, “You will be surprised because most of the banking or wallet apps around the world don’t use hardware security. They actually run completely in Android mode and user’s password can be stolen. Users use fingerprint which might be captured … in India that is the case for most of all digital wallets and mobile banking apps”. Mr. Choudhury further said that most of the famous digital payment applications in India do not use hardware level security. “Reason we are saying that none of them is using it because we work with OEMs (original equipment makers,)” said Mr. Choudhury.
Qualcomm will be approaching digital payment companies to ensure secure environment during the payment process on the mobile gadgets. The company leads mobile chipset market with a global share of 37 per cent. Qualcomm will also introduce a new feature in its mobile chipsets by 2017 which will verify user with the payment gateway.
It will use unique features like device ID, phone manufacturers signature, Android version in the phone, location and time and many more features which will be impossible to replicate. Mr. Choudhury said, “Everyone is getting connected, everyone is getting authenticated by the device. How do you know that your device is getting ready for demonetization? When you download a mobile banking app you don’t know if it is using hardware security or not. We are providing a secure execution environment in the chipsets. This layer separates transactions on a mobile phone from the operating system. This checks any malware from affecting transactions”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing people to go digital without prior knowledge of the digital security of these applications in India. Since, mobile payment applications and wallets are not secure, should people in India continue to use these applications?
