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Types of Phone Connection Security

All of the following can be used with WiFi networks to supply security for mobile phone banking.

WEP Protocol -

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a security algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Introduced as part of the original 802.11 standard ratified in September 1999, its intention was to provide data confidentially comparable to that of a traditional wired network. WEP, recognizable by the (encryption) key of 10 or 26 hexadecimal digits - so 40 - 104 binary digits -, was at one time widely in use and was often the first security choice presented to users by router configuration tools.

In 2003 the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that WEP had been superseded by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA - see below). In 2004, with the ratification of the full 802.11i standard (i.e. WPA2), the IEEE declared that both WEP-40 and WEP-104 have been deprecated.

The full Wikipedia article.

WPA Protocol -

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) are two security protocols and security certification programs developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. The Alliance defined these in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in the previous system, WEP (See above)

WPA (sometimes referred to as the draft IEEE 802.11i standard) became available in 2003. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended it as an intermediate measure in anticipation of the availability of the more secure and complex WPA2. WPA2 became available in 2004 and is a common shorthand for the full IEEE 802.11i standard.

A flaw in a feature added to Wi-Fi, called Wi-Fi Protected Setup, allows WPA and WPA2 security to be bypassed and effectively broken in many situations. WPA and WPA2 security implemented without using the Wi-Fi Protected Setup feature are unaffected by the security vulnerability.

A 256 bit key is used for the WPA-Personal mode.

The full Wikipedia article.

Unsecured Services -

It is possible that you could choose to use an unsecured WiFi hotspot, but this would obviously be ill-advised for performing banking tasks. And one would assume that the banking app would not allow this anyway.

GSM Protocols -

Varieties are 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM

using ISDN - digital telephone lines

only authenticates the user to the network, not the other way around

From Wikipedia

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