International Journal of Computer Science Issues

More than a traditional journal...

This paper is a build up to a bigger work in progress which essentially looks at undertaking an extensive evaluation of security threats on M-Commerce platform usage in Information Communication technology for development (ICTD) contexts. This initiative will subsequently draw up a framework to inform deployment of such services and platforms in rural marginalized communities. As is commonly acknowledged that security requirements cannot be addressed by technical means alone, a significant aspect of protection comes down to the attitudes, awareness, behaviour and capabilities of the people involved. Likewise the aim of this work was to evaluate rural users social habits and day-to-day interaction with mobile devices, in order to ascertain the human aspect as a source of threat in mobile device use. M-Commerce information and systems security seeks to provide: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Non repudiation Authentication. We propose to use these security properties as metrics to investigate how security vulnerabilities were introduced by human to device interaction in our field of study. An ethnographic field study was performed under a Living Lab experience in order to understand the related problems and security issues on mobile phone and ICT usage in a marginalized community. Qualitative measures such as contextual inquiry, participant observation, focus and individual interviews were used during the field data collection. However, only preliminary results from field studies are described in this paper. This work however does not provide a concrete solution on how to secure M-Commerce systems but highlights some socio-technical suggestions that can be used in order to attain that goal. Product designers, service providers and all value chain providers must consider the discoveries noted in this paper in order to deliver successful ICT and mobile-based services to users in these areas.