MTN Mobile Money and payD

At the end of July 2011 MTN Mobile Money announced the launch of payD, an on-line payment service. Using encrypted channels, payD allows bank customers to effect electronic payments with PIN-protected cards.

A rogue IMSI catcher, masquerading as a GSM base station, can entice mobile phones in the vicinity to camp to its stronger signal and exposing the phone to packet sniffing. Sensitive information could be harvested from the communication session. It is worth noting that plain old SMS messages are not encrypted.

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