Mobile Browsers Still Not Safe Enough: Fails Security Tests

According to a recent study, mobile browsers are still not safe enough as experts were not able to detect when the browser visited malicious sites.

Of course, with the invention of smart-phones, you have the Internet at your fingertips round the clock. But how safe is it to browse the Internet through your phone? Not quite, says a recent study conducted by researchers from Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science. According to the study, mobile browsers still don't have the option to detect whether a person is visiting a site that is fake which is actually "phishing for personal data".

"We found vulnerabilities in all 10 of the mobile browsers we tested, which together account for more than 90 percent of the mobile browsers in use today in the United States," said Patrick Traynor, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science. "The basic question we asked was, 'Does this browser provide enough information for even an information-security expert to determine security standing?' With all 10 of the leading browsers on the market today, the answer was no."

One of the main reasons for this, researchers say is because of the small screens designers have to work with when it comes to mobile browsing. The size is so small that there isn't enough space to fit in SSL indicators. SSL alerts users about their connection being secure or not, and if the site they are visiting is actually the site they intended on visiting in the first place.

"Research has shown that mobile browser users are three times more likely to access phishing sites than users of desktop browsers," said Chaitrali Amrutkar, a Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science and principal author of the paper that described the SSL research. "Is that all due to the lack of these SSL indicators? Probably not, but giving these tools a consistent and complete presence in mobile browsers would definitely help."

"We understand the dilemma facing designers of mobile browsers, and it looks like all of them tried to do the best they could in balancing everything that has to fit within those small screens," Traynor said. "But the fact is that all of them ended up doing something just a little different -- and all inferior to desktop browsers. With a little coordination, we can do a better job and make mobile browsing a safer experience for all users."