Abstract:
With increase in use of mobile banking services in Kenya due to their ease of use and
reliability. Many people have adopted its use, this has come with its fair share of
challenges including a new way of attackers to steal your money or information. Social
engineering technics have been rampant and are being used against vulnerable users.
Tricks like phishing, impersonation and other methods are used to make targets give out
their confidential details. This research found out how these technics are employed
against Uni-cash (a Unison Sacco mobile banking application) users, found ways in
which users and developers have put in place to protect private information. The research
found more countermeasures to be put in place. The research found the vulnerability of
users to usage of phishing attacks. Also, to found out the extent in which impersonations
affect the security of users. The research also assessed the personal experiences of users
to these social engineering threats. Some hypotheses of the study were that the kind of
social engineering technics like phishing and impersonation determine the vulnerability
of the targets. Additionally, those who had previous encounters with these kinds of attacks
tend to be aware of such social engineering techniques in the future. The researcher
employed the use of questionnaires with both close-ended and open-ended questions to
get both quantitative and qualitative statistics. Different analysis methodologies were
used where descriptive analysis was used for quantitative data. Thematic analysis was
also applied to qualitative data derived from open-ended questionnaire responses. The
research recommended that users report any suspicious activity in the banking apps,
contact from the bank should be done using well known and unique phone numbers.