Johannesburg - According to the Kaspersky Consumer Security Risks survey conducted by B2B International with Kaspersky Lab in 2013, almost one third of users do not feel safe making e-payments on their smartphones or tablets.
They do not trust the reliability of mobile device protection when shopping or banking online.
E-stores, e-payments and e-banking systems have made many financial tasks easier. You can pay your bills, purchase hard-to-find items, and make transactions with a few clicks of the mouse - without wasting time in queues.
The widespread use of smartphones and tablets makes online banking even more convenient: the portability and functionality of these gadgets means you can manage it all not only at home or in the office, but anywhere you can find Internet access or a phone signal.
Not all smartphone and tablet owners understand the benefits of accessing your money while on the go, and it seems many are hesitant to embrace mobile banking technology.
The B2B International survey shows that 33 percent of respondents would never use a mobile device for making online transactions, such as paying for goods in online stores.
A slightly smaller, but still considerable proportion of smartphone and tablet owners (28 percent) do not feel comfortable using their devices for online banking. And only 22 percent of tablet and 27 percent of smartphone users are unconcerned about entering financial information from their gadgets.
Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system and therefore is most frequently attacked by cybercriminals, which makes sense, since the more users to target, the easier it is for fraudsters to get illegal income.
According to Kaspersky Lab, 99 percent of all existing mobile malware samples are developed for Android.
In 2012, the company’s experts found 35 000 malware samples for Android. In the first six month of 2013 that number soared to more than 47 000.
These numbers have persuaded some users to ditch these devices altogether, never mind using them for online financial transactions - 13 percent of those surveyed reported they would not use Android for this particular reason.
Fake Android apps for online banking operations, phishing attacks, and malicious attacks developed to intercept the data the user enters via the keyboard are some of the malicious tools that have often been used to attack the owners of Android-based devices.
One can hardly blame smartphone and tablet owners for being excessively cautious while using financial services.
However, despite the growing number of threats for Android, users can safely make mobile payments by protecting their device with a reliable security solution.