No mobile payment app in India is fully secure: Qualcomm

While the government is pushing for digital payments throughmobile phones, chipset maker Qualcomm said that wallets and mobile bankingapplications in India are not using hardware level security which can makeonline transactions more secure.

"You will be surprised because most of the banking orwallet apps around the world don't use hardware security. They actually runcompletely in Android mode and users password can be stolen. Users usefingerprint which might be captured ... in India that is the case for most ofall digital wallets and mobile banking apps," Qualcomm senior director,product management Sy Choudhury told reporters here.

He said that even most famous digital payment application inIndia is not using hardware level security.

"Reason we are saying that none of them is using itbecause we work with OEMs (original equipment makers)," Choudhury said.

As per market research firm Strategy Analytics, Qualcommleads mobile chipset market globally with 37 per cent share.

"Everyone is getting connected, everyone is gettingauthenticated by device. How do you know that your device is getting ready fordemonetisation? When you download a mobile banking app you don't know if it isusing hardware security or not," Choudhury said.

He said that Qualcomm is now approaching digital paymentscompanies for using secure environment for processing payments on mobile phone.

"We are providing secure execution environment in thechipsets. This layer separates transactions on mobile phone from operating system.This checks any malware from effecting transactions," Choudhury said.

He said that Qualcomm is also coming up with new feature inits mobile chipsets from 2017 that verify user with payment gateway usingunique features like device id, phone manufacturer signature, Android versionin the phone, root kit of operating system, location and time, which will benearly impossible to duplicate.

"Device attestation feature will start shipping in2017. For end users it should be available by end of 2017," Choudhurysaid.

The company has partnered with software security companyAvast to generate alerts for users in case their mobile phones are infectedwith virus or malware.

Choudhury lauded India's Aadhaar authentication system.

"Aadhaar initiated by Indian government, the path thatit is moving now with digital version of Aadhaar is far ahead then mostgovernment in the entire world," Choudhury said.