I have a mobile banking application installed on my phone which allows me to pay

Question

I have a mobile banking application installed on my phone which allows me to pay for things, transfer money using my phone from my account to another etc.

How safe or unsafe is this application? For example, what are the chances that I could get malware/virus/spyware/keylogger on my phone which could somehow record my bank details, or worse, steal my money and send my money to some foreign countries bank account?

Is such a thing possible, or is this impossible, i.e. are all android applications sand-boxed or something, which makes it impossible for malware/virus/spyware/keyloggers to tap into another application on the same phone, i.e. the banking application?

I am specifically talking about banking applications on android phones.

Explanation / Answer

Explanation: mobile OS are far more advanced in their security architecture than your good old windows OS is.

Having said that it really depends on your device, OS and how you use it.

For example devices I would consider safe without any hesitation are unrooted iOS devices and Android Nexus devices. I would say most of these are much safer than most PC's are.

If you root/jailbreak your device you are greatly increasing the risk since you are breaking the defense mechanisms of the OS.

If you allow installation of applications from untrusted sources you are increasing the risk

If your device is not a high end device which gets updates on a timely manner you are at bigger risk (this is why Nexus devices are the safest among android devices)

If you connect to open public WiFi networks you are increasing your risk.

Additionally I would recommend to use the default keyboard and not some 3rd party keyboard. Not because I think 3rd party keyboard on the market are malicious (Apple and Google perform security audits on their markets) but because they might be logging your input for "good" purpose like word completion - but you cannot be sure they are doing it in a secure manner which will prevent your passwords from leaking who knows where...

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