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Forensic Analysis of Mobile Banking Apps

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019 (ICCSA 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11623))

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Abstract

Over the years, the proliferation of mobile banking applications has been on the increase. Financial institutions are taking advantage of mobile technology to provide accessible, ubiquitous, user-friendly, convenient, and cost-effective services to their customers. The mobile banking applications access and process sensitive user data. As such, they are required to manage such data in a high secure manner and run in secure environment. This study conducts a forensic investigation of twelve popular Android m-banking apps in Nigeria to determine if the generated backups by the mobile OS do not save sensitive data; the application removes sensitive data from view when backgrounded; sensitive data are not held longer than necessary in the memory, with the memory cleared after use; minimum device access security policies are enforced by the app, and users are educated by the app about the type of PII processed and security best practices in using the app. Our findings revealed that while none of the apps saved sensitive data in generated backup, all except one held data of sensitive value in the memory of the test device and did not enforce any device access security policy. Also, none of the apps removed sensitive data when backgrounded. In addition to serving as a source of information for forensic investigators, we believe our study could assist mobile banking app developers in identifying aspects of the development process that need attention, which would lead to better secured apps.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria

    Oluwafemi Osho, Uthman L. Mohammed, Nanfa N. Nimzing & Andrew A. Uduimoh

  2. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

Authors
  1. Oluwafemi Osho
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  2. Uthman L. Mohammed
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  3. Nanfa N. Nimzing
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  4. Andrew A. Uduimoh
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  5. Sanjay Misra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sanjay Misra .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  2. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  3. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  4. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Stankova

  5. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg , Russia

    Vladimir Korkhov

  6. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Torre

  7. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A.C. Rocha

  8. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    David Taniar

  9. Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  10. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Eufemia Tarantino

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Osho, O., Mohammed, U.L., Nimzing, N.N., Uduimoh, A.A., Misra, S. (2019). Forensic Analysis of Mobile Banking Apps. In: Misra, S., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019. ICCSA 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11623. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24308-1_49

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24308-1_49

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24307-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24308-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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