In spite of the seemingly unlimited potential to
drive new applications and markets in mobile e-commerce,
new security and privacy risks particular to the
wireless medium and devices abound in m-commerce
applications. Integrating security and privacy into
online m-commerce applications will enable a projected
$25 billion market in wireless software, content,
and commerce. On the other hand, failing to
provide a secure system of m-commerce will significantly
dampen consumer adoption rates.
Even as the general form factor of mobile computing
devices has been drastically reduced, the computing
capacity has grown significantly. Today’s handheld
devices have computing power equivalent to their
desktop-computing counterparts of only one generation
earlier. This phenomenon, while driving more
and more functionality into handheld wireless Internet-
enabled devices, is also driving security risks
endemic to desktop computing into wireless devices.
For example, malicious code—long a problem affecting
desktop computing—is likely to be a troubling
scourge in m-commerce as the capabilities of handheld
wireless devices increase.