How banks and other financial players can guarantee the security of their communications.
People must have complete faith in the security of mobile messaging if they intend to use it to communicate with their bank.
Therefore, it is crucial that banks and other financial services providers are aware that they can provide those assurances.
The potential security risks in the realm of mobile messaging and how to protect against them are the topics of this article.
1 – Security within (and via) mobile messaging
The concept of security through mobile messaging is undoubtedly familiar to CX leaders at banks and their clients.
One method for establishing a customer’s identity and protecting their data is two-factor authentication popularly known as 2FA.
SMS messages can also be used to verify payments and stop fraud. After making a transaction, many of us have responded Y (or N) to a text message from the bank.
But what about the safety of texting on mobile devices?
2 – Unknown threats
Mobile messaging has its own peculiarities, laws, and a large number of participants, including operators, solution providers, aggregators, marketers, users, support services, and more.
A handful of the risk factors are unique to our globe, as an SMS aggregator Gikko will be able to guide you on best practices for both local and international destinations to ensure security and elimination of unknown threats.
3 – SIM Swap fraud
When identity thieves pretend to be one of your customers when they phone a carrier to get their number moved to a new SIM, allowing the fraudster to receive all of the customer’s communications.
Thankfully, carriers have cracked down on this in recent years and established procedures to reduce risk. To avoid SIM swap fraud it is important to have secure passwords that don’t reveal personal information such as birthdays and names. Making them more complex can help reduce the risk of hackers getting into your accounts.
4 – More recognisable dangers
There are many online threats that are also major concerns for mobile messaging security, including phishing (also known as SMS smishing), spamming, spoofing, identity theft, data theft, and the spread of viruses.
However, SMS is generally a tightly regulated, pristine, and secure channel.
5 – Improved messaging, increased security
The rising usage of rich messaging by marketers is something that is assisting with security improvements. In fact, it’s one of the factors contributing to its rising fame.
The future of mobile communications is rich messaging, such as Apple Business Chat and RCS messaging for Android.
These solutions send multi-media, app-like experiences directly to the inboxes of your customers. Importantly, they offer you a reliable means of demonstrating the legitimacy of your brand. Mobile operators have strict control over RCS channel registration. Therefore, it is very difficult for fraudsters to “spoof” or imitate messages. Another piece of good news is that rich messaging channels will not support grey route traffic which is a way of sending SMS where two operators or entities do not have a commercial relationship or agreement, as a result a large amount of traffic will then be generated at a low cost.
6 – The vital function of a secure messaging service provider
The truth is that choosing a supplier with excellent security credentials is your most crucial action when it comes to business mobile messaging.
You need to be certain that they can uphold their commitment to protecting your customers and your brand.
That necessitates searching for a few particular qualities in a potential messaging provider.
7 – Security history
Learn whether the service provider has ever experienced a security breach and if so, why. Although a breach shouldn’t always exclude that partner, understanding the context of any breaches may provide you with insightful information.
Frameworks for security
Look for certification and standards including:
- PSD2, FINRA
- ISO 27001 (2013) standard
- Certified by BSI (British Standards Institute)
- GDPR addressed and multiple data centre locations
8 – Availability, dependability, and integrity
Check that the provider’s platform is highly available to protect your customers from data loss. You should look for geographically distributed data centres so that local outages or natural disasters do not disrupt the entire network. There should be no single points of failure or bottlenecks in the network architecture. Look for service level agreements ( SLAs) of at least 99.99% uptime.
9 – Personal or sensitive information is protected by safeguards.
Providers must have an effective information security management system (ISMS) in place that provides clear guidance on measures such as:
- Identity and access management
- Awareness and training
- Audit trail and accountability
- Configuration management
- Information security governance
- Incident response
- Security operations
- Media protection
- Personnel security
- Physical and environmental protection
- Risk management
- Security development and acquisition
- Network security
- System and information integrity
10 – Data encryption
Data should be encrypted in transit on external public networks, including the internet, using widely accepted industry encryption ciphers and strengths. It should also be encrypted at rest by one or more mechanisms. They should use encryption technologies appropriate to the sensitivity of the information they are transmitting when connecting to mobile operators.
To find out more about secure mobile messaging, talk to our team of experts today.
