Vulnerability Analysis of Digital Banks' Mobile Applications

Abstract: There is a rapid increase in the number of mobile banking applications' users due to an increase in smart mobile devices. Mobile banking is a financial transaction and service offered through mobile devices. Almost all financial institutions now provide mobile banking services to their customers. However, the security of mobile banking applications is of huge concern because of the amount of personal data and information they collect. If an attacker gets hold of personal information, they can access bank payment or card accounts. This research aims to analyze the vulnerability of the UK digital banks' applications to identify vulnerabilities in the apps and proffer countermeasures that can help improve the security of the bank applications. Androbugs, a vulnerability scanner, was used to analyze the vulnerability of six digital banks' android applications. Starling, Monese, Atom bank, Transferwise, Monzo, and Revolut were scanned. All the scanned digital banks' applications have vulnerabilities; however, some have more vulnerabilities than others. For example, Revolut's mobile application has the highest number of identified vulnerabilities. Therefore, there is need for more security in the digital banks' applications as well as other mobile banking applications.