Lack of Awareness by End Users on Security Issues Affecting Mobile Banking: A Case Study of Kenyan Mobile Phone End Users

Abstract

The use of mobile phones in African has seen a formidable growth. The use of mobile phones to perform business and financial transactions seems to be on the increase as well. The rise in use of mobile phones to perform financial transactions also increases the risks associated with such transactions and especially man in the middle attacks. These compounded with lack of awareness among users means that they (the users) are highly exposed to such attacks. Due to the popular use of mobile banking in Kenya and the third world in particular, securing communication between the mobile device and the back end server has become a fundamental issue. This is due to the fact that hackers have the ability to steal banking information using various techniques, particularly the duping of mobile phone users to believe that they are communicating with a genuine program from their bank while in reality a user is simple giving away sensitive information to the hacker.

This paper aims to investigate the level of awareness among users of mobile banking transactions in regards to man in the middle attacks and whether the awareness or lack of it can increase or deter such attacks

Key words: mobile phones, Mobile banking services, Security, man in the middle attack,