MIDDLE EAST BANKING If banks upgrade security measures to include twofactor authentication, will consumers be free from hackers and safe to handle their finances online? This would definitely go a long way towards mitigating attacks and in the short term adversaries in this space would be more likely to first target customers of banks that didn’t provide these security controls. In the long term, it would force threat actors to invest in redesigning how they exploit targets in order to make fraudulent transactions and access their bank accounts. At this point in time it’s unclear what this would entail however, as we’ve seen time and time again in the security space this is a continual game of cat and mouse between attackers and defenders.
Over the last couple of years we’ve seen numerous applications being released that allow customers to quickly transfer money between one another. PingIt, Swish Payments, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and even via Facebook Messenger are a few examples of this type of money transfer and there are a number of apps for handling cryptocurrencies. As banks continue to refine their security controls, we are expecting to see malicious actors expand their capabilities to go after these apps when they compromise a mobile device.
Michael Flossman Security Researcher Lookout
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