Would you feel less/more/as safe online shopping and banking on a mobile platform?

Viruses, malware, trojans, keyloggers, etc. are pretty much nonexistent at this point on operating systems like iOS, QNX, Android?, and Windows RT. From what I've read their design is based on sandboxing and other limited permissions I won't get in to. Basically, they're not your desktop PC.
With that in mind, do you still only feel safe with your Sandboxie and your Kaspersky?

The only thing I can think of that's lacking on mobile operating systems are dedicated firewalls.

Edit: Hmm. I messed up on the poll question. But it's the same as the thread question.

And as for the type of internet connection, it can be any type of connection you want--home wifi, lte.

 

I would worry about using mobile devices at all, mostly because they use wireless connection only, various ISPs on the way, unsecured and unencrypted.

 

Depends on the connection, and what kind of crap the manufacturer installed.

I think there are more choices for banking security on the PC.

 

Sort of hard to answer the question since I do not do any of the above on a mobile device. I don't do on-line shopping on a PC either. I would "feel" safer on my PC at any rate.

 

There are potential security/privacy upsides to platforms and procedures that create additional restrictions on modifications to the environment and what applications can do. However, there are also potential security/privacy downsides to such. When it comes to weighing the pros and cons, one must consider numerous implementation details and also the abilities of the individual user in question.

Back during the spell of CA breaches I can remember reading several articles which reported that mobile platforms/apps weren't updated rapidly whereas desktop platform/apps were. I seem to recall one article, coming numerous months after the breaches became widely well known, attempting to drawn attention to several mainstream mobile platforms still not having been updated. One little detail such as that can potentially make a big difference, and there are so many more.

 

No, I wouldn't feel more safe. My desktop system is probably less targeted than Android and I have a lot more power to secure it.

 

How about on an iPad or Playbook on your home network?

 

What Hungry man said.

 

Less safe, of course.

 

If it is on your home network then at least you can (hopefully) sniff all of its traffic via another device. I've never looked into what it would take to sniff cell communications.

 

Is a router's NAT firewall adequate?

 

You may THINK you have more power to secure it! No jk

 

If you meant adequate in general to protect your home network...
I suppose that would depend on the unit's capabilities and what it is that you want it to do. If it will be your border guard you'd obviously want it to have sufficient statefulness, configurability, etc to offer good protection against potential incoming threats. I think there is some variation in products when it comes to that. When it comes to outgoing protection I believe there is even more variation in products, with some offering only primitive "block this site" type parental controls and others offering more elaborate filtering. Perhaps a new or revived "what do you look for in a home wireless router/NAT" thread would be a good place for an exchange of thoughts on such matters?

My previous sniffing related comment was sort of a precursor to that question in that you may not know everything you want (an external device) to do/block until you've looked at your (main) device's traffic and considered approaches to dealing with anything you don't desire.

If you meant adequate for sniffing...
Depending on what device you are talking about and what firmware you use, it might have port mirroring capabilities or other capture/logging feature that is useful. Other approaches would include a PC will dual interfaces, an AirPcap, on old hub, something like a Dualcomm DCSW-1005PT, ...

 

iOS more, Android less. since I mostly use iOS then I chose more.

 

I never do any kind of banking or shopping stuff through my cellphone.

 

Same here.

 

I would feel less safe shopping and banking on a mobile platform.

I never have and I never will

 

I think it's adequate enough to prevent a freshly installed XP machine from being infected in less than 15 minutes or worse--as it's being installed!

But yeah. I agree on a thread about what people look for in a router and its configurations.

 

That goes for a non-Android tablet as well?

 

I don't have a tablet. LOL

 

Well basically i never do any kind of banking or online shopping unless i'm using my Desktop or preferably my Laptop.

 

Sorry for the late reply, but I don't use either platforms.

On Android there are plenty of security apps/settings like blacklisting (i.e. AV/DNS/extension), whitelisting (i.e. browser content settings), anti-theft, HTTPS/VPN/proxy encryption, maybe password/info manager, and common sense (lock it, keep away from others, analyze info about apps [with help of Andrubis], etc.) I don't think there's anything specifically for identity theft though, correct me if I'm wrong.
There are even more options if I root it and control app permissions, firewall rules, system apps, etc. Maybe you can even get virtualization working, it's Linux after all (most likely needs custom kernel).

Personally, I don't bank on my phone, because it's full of apps that I installed on impulse (especially from Google Play, more stringent on other sources). Plus, I have less knowledge of the operating system, and whatever the manufacturers or government installed (software and firmware-wise). If buying apps and maybe non-important stuff counts as shopping, then I'd still do it.

The home network is of course a different beast altogether. The security should be the at least around same for all modern devices by default. That I'm even less experienced with.

 

IOS I'd feel a bit safer, Android is garbage though. They really need to improve their game. How many research papers out their with proof of concept malware for android? Probably 100's. They need to come up with a central update management system and cut all the bad app's from the Google Play store.

 

Less safe because mobile platform usually doesn't have enough protection from malware, unless if you have a mobile security installed.

 

No banking or purchasing on mobile platform for me. It's just not secure and I don't even know how to make it secure enough.