Solo Presentation

Although having internet security is more important today than it has ever been, it seems as though people today are neglecting to consider it more than they ever have. Last class, I presented an article about security issues dealing with bank applications that have been made available to smart phones such as the iphone and droid. The idea behind these applications is that with this application on a person’s phone, they are always connected to their bank accounts and can quickly check the status of them at anytime. In this article, Andrew Hoog, chief officer for the company viaForensics, researched and scrutinized seven different banking applications to see if the had any security flaws. All of them except one had security flaws and some of the flaws were pretty serious. One of them actually stored the account holder’s username and password in a text file on the phone. With this flaw, all someone would have to do to gain access to your bank account is either just steal your phone or make a virus that steals the files off your phone. Using these applications seems like a pretty big gamble.

I always thought these types of applications were risky and dangerous to use, but after discussing this article with the class, it seems like most people who actually take the time to think about it would agree with me. I asked the class if it seems like people are giving up security in exchange for convenience when they use applications like this and pretty much everyone seemed to agree that people are doing this. After seeing this response from the class, I have to believe that pretty much anyone with a properly functioning brain would come to the same conclusion. Therefore, it seems that people are actually willing to give up security and safety in exchange for quick and easy access. Really, when you think about it, something can not be secure and easy to access; that is just an oxymoron. A person can either have one or the other or maybe some balance of the two. This culture’s indifference to security or the consequences of its actions are really exemplified with these banking applications. Anytime a new product comes out there is always a time period in which flaws are found and re-calls are made to fix the problems. It should have been obvious when these banking applications first came out that there would be initial flaws in them, but no one cared and tons of these applications were downloaded. All people cared about were how easy the applications made banking. Looking at the path our culture is traveling on right now, when someone looks up the history of our culture someday far in the future, it seems as though the main adjectives that will be used to describe us are words such as foolish, impatient, and indifferent to the consequences of our actions.