Are mobile payments and digital wallets safe? Are the apps safer than credit cards? What are the main risks? Here’s what to know.
While cash transactions aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, the convenience of electronic payment solutions has been steadily growing in popularity over the years. According to a recent survey by the US Federal Reserve, cash payments accounted for just 26% of all payments. Meanwhile, credit and debit cards and electronic payment methods were used for 65% of all payments.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also triggered changes in how people shop, with e-commerce experiencing a surge in demand due to either governments limiting interaction between people to curb the spread of the disease or by people isolating themselves and doing most of their shopping online.
As convenience is king, the surge of both cashless payment methods and online shopping, as well as the use of smartphones for shopping, has led to the increased adoption of mobile payment methods. Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and WeChat Pay prove to be among some of the most popular mobile payment apps. However, they may come with their own sets of risks, and threat actors like to utilize them in their scams as well.
Risks
Since we’re mainly focusing on mobile payment apps, it stands to reason that one of the greatest risks is losing your smartphone, which houses most of your sensitive information and your payment data if you use payment apps. If you haven’t secured it properly, criminals could rack up charges on your cards or use your payment apps to go on a shopping spree. Besides ending up with either an empty ..
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