Major Security Holes Found In Mobile Bank Apps

NeverVotedBush writes with this excerpt from CNet: "A security firm disclosed holes today in mobile apps from Bank of America, USAA, Chase, Wells Fargo and TD Ameritrade, prompting a scramble by most of the companies to update the apps. ... Specifically, viaForensics concluded that: the USAA's Android app stored copies of Web pages a user visited on the phone; TD Ameritrade's iPhone and Android apps were storing the user name in plain text on the phone; Wells Fargo's Android app stored user name, password, and account data in plain text on the phone; Bank of America's Android app saves a security question (used if a user was accessing the site from an unrecognized device) in plain text on the phone; and Chase's iPhone app stores the username on a phone if the user chose that option, according to the report. Meanwhile, the iPhone apps from USAA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Vanguard and PayPal's Android app all passed the security tests and were found to be handling data securely."

Comments

Institutions

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Most institutions are concerned with whether they are legally covered and covered adequately for insurance purposes. Merely being covered to prevent customers from having money stolen is much, much less important. The concern of the higher-ups will be "did they sign our agreement that says we're protected" more than "Are our customers actually protected?"

IT systems are a tool, like an axe or a chainsaw. The problem is you may not realize you want steel-toed boots until your foot protests strenuously at being attacked.

Re:iPhone win?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a platform battle. The banks clearly take shortcuts or hire developers unfit for the task.
Maybe the iPhone developers also developed the Android apps and were not properly educated on Android development (just a thought).

Re:So what?

[GCsoftware]

I take it you've never heard of the OS-level security feature called Keychain, present on both OS X and iOS - basically, it's a way of storing data in an encrypted form, using the user's login password (or PIN) as the seed for the encryption key. Not unbreakable, but surely a hell of a lot better than plaintext.

Considering this ships as default with the OS, it's inexcusable to not use it. Morons.

See below for more details:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Security/Conceptual/keychainServConcepts/iPhoneTasks/iPhoneTasks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain_(Mac_OS)

OH! OH! I know! Pick Me !

[Zero__Kelvin]

"But how is Chase's App on iPhone "insecure" when it is the user's responsibility to not leave their username laying around ?"

... for the same reason that there isn't a little box to write your PIN number in on ATM cards. If you offer people a less secure but simpler alternative then many of them will use it out of shear, if understandable, ignorance of the implications. Since leaving your username information "laying around" is a security concern, the only way to keep the mass of people from making things less secure is to not offer the option in the first place. It is the responsibility of the banks, who have security experts, to make things more secure. It cannot sit on the shoulders of the masses, as you suggest it should, because it is a known fact that most people using the app are not security experts.

Indeed, by offering the option, they are implying that there is no issue with using it.

HTH