One-Time Password Security in Mobile Applications

The assignment examines the role of One-Time Passwords (OTP) as a robust authentication method in mobile applications. It discusses common security threats faced by mobile platforms and analyzes the effectiveness of OTPs in mitigating these risks. Furthermore, it explores various OTP generation techniques and their implementations within mobile applications, highlighting best practices for enhancing user security.

Standards, Ethics and Compliance
Preventative Approaches to Hacking Information
Technology
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Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
Background......................................................................................................................................3
What is the Issue?........................................................................................................................3
Why Hacking is a Threat?............................................................................................................3
Aim of Study....................................................................................................................................5
What is available to protect against Hacking?............................................................................5
Literature Review about Current Software Solution.......................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Abstract
This report is about preventative techniques to hacking information technology. Hacking has
become a serious issue for IT users. From past many years, several cases of hacking attacks have
encountered by business organizations and other users. Hackers are attracting towards
information technology to fulfill their purposes of profit, information gathering and to assess
weaknesses of system to obtain important information from it. To achieve this goal, different
types of hacking and virus attacks are executed by hackers and these attacks are so much harmful
for computer systems, databases and networks. This attacks cause heavy loss of confidential
information of users. DDoS, ransomware and identity theft are some commonly encountered
virus attacks. The large business organizations that are using IT applications such as eBay, Sony
and others have already faced hacking attacks and these attacks are not yet recovered properly.
Therefore, it is necessary to get prevention from hacking information technology. It can be
possible with the help of IT developers and by using appropriate security techniques. In this
report, I will emphasize on some prevention approaches for hacking information technology.
Before discussing about prevention methods to hacking information technology, it is essential to
emphasize on background of this topic. From background it will be easier to understand that how
hacking has come into existence. Besides, background and prevention approaches of hacking,
another essential topics to discuss are issue of hacking in IT, why it is a threat and literature
review about appropriate software solution that can be used as a prevention approach.
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Background
The relation of hacking and IT is as old as they are. It has been more than a century in
occurrence of hackers. From early 19th century, issue of hacking was encountered by IT users
(Information Technology Law, 2017). In old days, hacking was done in very common ways by
sending small harmful programing scripts to users’ computer, through virus attack and by using
floppy disks frequently on different computers to spread virus. These all methods had potential
to violate system security. Now, the area of hacking has become wider and causes different
issues that I will discuss in segment of this report.
What is the Issue?
Hacking has been implementing for last many years and it is a way to illegally access
information from computers without taking permission from its owner. In case of IT, hacking is
related to unauthorized access of systems and networks to get confidential information from
them (Advocatekhoj.com, 2017). To implement this approach malware and other virus attacks
are implemented. The main issue here is that hacking can cause high level damages to the
networks, computing devices and some other losses of finance, information and reputation of
users (Ncsl.org, 2017).
Why Hacking is a Threat?
Besides this, hacking is always considered as a big threat for users of information technology.
There are several reasons that why hacking is a threat for IT that are listed as below
(Itstillworks.com, 2017):
Causing System Malfunctions
It is one of the main reasons that hacking is considered as a threat. Hackers spread virus into
system by using harmful executable programming scripts. This virus causes problems in
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functionality of system holistically and it becomes difficult for users to work with system and to
control the spreading of virus (Comodo Antivirus Blogs | Anti-Virus Software Updates, 2017).
Moreover, with the help of hacking bugs and operational mistakes can be raised into software
solutions (Cyber.laws.com, 2017).
Loss of Supporting Infrastructure
Another big threat of hacking is that it causes severe problems for supporting system or network
infrastructure in IT (Intelligentedu.com, 2017). Through hacking attacks, it is possible for
hackers to raise issues of power failure, loss of communications, network damage and
information leakage etc. (Ravi Sharma, 2012). This threat of hacking in information technology
leads to system poor performance and loss of resources of information (Identity-theft-scout.com,
2017).
Security and Privacy Issues
Another biggest threat is of security and privacy of information (Ikarussecurity.com, 2017). Due
to accidental hacking attacks, various issues in installation and maintenance of security tools
occurs and it raises security issues of information for users. If security tools will not work
properly then it will become easier for hackers to conduct attack on networks and computer
systems (Dr. Dobb's, 2017). Furthermore, databases can be accessed from remote locations easily
by cyber-attackers. This is all happened in absence of security tools system becomes weak and it
is easy to violate its security and privacy.
Due to above discuss reasons, hacking has always been a big threat for users of information
technology and there is no doubt to say that hacking and phishing attacks has potential to obtain
personal information from users of IT. Now from above discussion it is cleared that hacking is a
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big offence and causes so much damage for IT users. Therefore, some essential preventative
approaches must be implemented to get rid of hacking attacks.
Aim of Study
What is available to protect against Hacking?
The aim of this report is to identify and discuss a latest and advanced software solution that can
provide protection against hacking. The most commonly available software solutions are
antivirus software, firewall and anti-spyware software. These solutions must be used by IT users
to control hacking attacks (T. Manirathnam, R. Devi, Dr. A. Muthukumaravel, 2014). First of all,
if I talk about anti-virus software solution then it is easy to configure into system and it gives
alert to users at identification of a virus. Moreover, antivirus software solution can fix virus or
bug into system (Webroot.com, 2017). In this case, antivirus is useful for getting prevention
against hacking in IT (CNBC, 2017). Another available software solution is firewall. It is an in-
built software in operating system that must be in on mode (Schlesinger, 2017). Firewall detects
unknown entities that try to enter into system and can cause damage. These entities can enter
through any content that is downloaded from different website and it is in form of pop-ups or
notifications (Y. Huang, Z. Huang, H. Zhao, X. Lai, 2014). Here, firewall restricts harmful pop-
ups and allows users to block these pop-ups. Hackers mostly uses these techniques to access
information from users’ systems. Besides this, anti-spyware software solution is also an essential
tool that can be used to get prevention from hacking. It is commonly observed that hackers use
spyware software to gather personal information of users without their permission. It is a harmful
software and it is difficult to remove from system in which it is resided. In this case, anti-
spyware software solution is used as a preventative approach of hacking. It is an effective
solution to combat spyware. Like firewall and anti-virus, anti-spyware also provides real time
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protection to its users. So these are some operative solutions to control problems hacking
information technology.
Literature Review about Current Software Solution
As I have discussed some commonly used software solutions that are easy to use to resolve
problem of hacking IT (Tonge, 2013). But with further analysis, I got to know that according
some researchers’ point of view OTP is an emerged solution that can provide better prevention
from hacking issues. These researchers work in field of automation and cyber security for
protection of data and they truly believe that OTP is an appropriate solution to maintain security
and privacy of IT users. In case of online transactions and to perform other online activities on
banking and business level websites, security and privacy must be maintained both at developers
and users end (More, 2017). In this situation, a solution that we can use is OTP i.e. One Time
Password. It is used for authentication of account or for opening any file. There are number of
researchers that are working in this field and give assurance that it is a reliable and secure
solution to stop hacking in information technology (E. Kalaikavitha etl [14]). These researchers
also defines that how OTP is helpful in daily routine to set mobile and system authentication.
OTP is generated with the help of a mathematical formulae and after generating OTP it is sent to
the user through SMS on his mobile for authentication of his online account (E. Kalaikavitha, J
Gnanselvi, 2013). OTP is highly recommended to use in case of mobile banking or internet
banking where authentication of user’s account is very much important (Shesashaayee [15]).
According to T. Saini [16], a new OTP is generated at every transaction and here genetic
algorithm is used with a cryptography approach of elliptic curve. Getting new OTP every time
enhances security of online users’ account and they do not need to worry about old passwords
(T. Saini, 2014). One Time Password is one of secure techniques of prevention from hacking.
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The main factor of OTP enhances its efficiency is use of biometric authentication technique that
increase security and privacy of users’ account at large extent. Furthermore, use of SHA
algorithm is also important aspect of development of OTP. Now whenever any user do online
transactions or send any important information regarding user’s account then OTP is highly
preferred to use (Lidan Shou, He Bai, Ke Chen, and Gang Chen, 2014). Nowadays, most of the
business organizations, banking institutions and ecommerce business organizations are using this
software approach to enhance security level of their services for its users. Therefore, after this
whole discussion I can say that OTP is an advanced solution that can be used for controlling
hacking and phishing attacks (Saranya, T., Shalini, A., Kanchana, A, 2014). It is also defined by
OTP developers that phishing attacks can also be controlled with the help of this technique. The
use of one time password decreases the risk of security in case of overall process of
authentication (M.H. Khan, 2014).
There is no doubt that issues of cyber security are increasing day by day and it is time to resolve
these issues by using advanced techniques. Although OTP is considered a better security
approach, but there are other detection techniques are also available that can be used by users
according to requirements to constrain hacking (A. K. Kushwaha, 2014).
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Conclusion
To sum up, I can say that hacking is vulnerable in case of information technology and it can be
severe if proper solutions will not be used by developers and users. Therefore, above discussed
solutions must be taken into consideration seriously. These prevention approaches will allow
users to maintain high level security and privacy of their systems and online accounts.
Additionally, before start usage of every security method it will be better to get its fundamental
knowledge.
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References
Information Technology Law. (2017). Hacking - Information Technology Law. [online]
Available at: http://ictlaw.com/computer-crime/hacking/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].
Ncsl.org. (2017). Computer Crime Statutes. [online] Available at:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/computer-
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Advocatekhoj.com. (2017). Hacking with Computer system | Information Technology Act, 2000
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Itstillworks.com. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at:
https://itstillworks.com/negative-effects-hackers-2867.html [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].
Cyber.laws.com. (2017). Hacking - Cyber | Laws.com. [online] Available at:
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Intelligentedu.com. (2017). Chapter 18: Threats, Attacks, Hackers & Crackers. [online]
Available at: http://www.intelligentedu.com/computer_security_for_everyone/18-threats-attacks-
hackers-crackers.html [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017].
Identity-theft-scout.com. (2017). Computer Hacking a Serious Threat to Your Identity Security.
[online] Available at: http://www.identity-theft-scout.com/computer-hacking.html [Accessed 27
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Ikarussecurity.com. (2017). Hacking: prevention and how to handle - IKARUS Security
Software. [online] Available at:
https://www.ikarussecurity.com/support/information-advice/ikarus-security-recommendations/
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