The proliferation of digital financial innovations like mobile money has led to the rise in mobile subscriptions and transactions. It has also increased the security challenges associated with the current two-factor authentication (2FA) scheme for mobile money due to the high demand. This review paper aims to determine the threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money. It also intends to identify the countermeasures to overcome the threat models. A comprehensive literature search was conducted from the Google Scholar and other leading scientific databases such as IEEE Xplore, MDPI, Emerald Insight, Hindawi, ACM, Elsevier, Springer, and Specific and International Journals, where 97 papers were reviewed that focused on the topic. Descriptive research papers and studies related to the theme were selected. Three reviewers extracted information independently on authentication, mobile money system architecture, mobile money access, the authentication scheme for mobile money, various attacks on the mobile money system (MMS), threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money, and countermeasures. Through literature analysis, it was found that the threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money were categorised into five, namely, attacks against privacy, attacks against authentication, attacks against confidentiality, attacks against integrity, and attacks against availability. The countermeasures include use of cryptographic functions (e.g., asymmetric encryption function, symmetric encryption function, and hash function) and personal identification (e.g., number-based and biometric-based countermeasures). This review study reveals that the current 2FA scheme for mobile money has security gaps that need to be addressed since it only uses a personal identification number (PIN) and a subscriber identity module (SIM) to authenticate users, which are susceptible to attacks. This work, therefore, will help mobile money service providers (MMSPs), decision-makers, and governments that wish to improve their current 2FA scheme for mobile money.

Smartphone technology has improved access to mobile money services (MMS) and successful mobile money deployment has brought massive benefits to the unbanked population in both rural and urban areas of Uganda. Despite its enormous benefits, embracing the usage and acceptance of mobile money has mostly been low due to security issues and challenges associated with the system. As a result, there is a need to carry out a survey to evaluate the key security issues associated with mobile money systems in Uganda. The study employed a descriptive research design, and stratified random sampling technique to group the population. Krejcie and Morgan’s formula was used to determine the sample size for the study. The collection of data was through the administration of structured questionnaires, where 741 were filled by registered mobile money (MM) users, 447 registered MM agents, and 52 mobile network operators’ (MNOs) IT officers of the mobile money service providers (MMSPs) in Uganda. The collected data were analyzed using RStudio software. Statistical techniques like descriptive analysis and Pearson Chi-Square test was used in data analysis and mean (M) > 3.0 and p-value < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The findings revealed that the key security issues are identity theft, authentication attack, phishing attack, vishing attack, SMiShing attack, personal identification number (PIN) sharing, and agent-driven fraud. Based on these findings, the use of better access controls, customer awareness campaigns, agent training on acceptable practices, strict measures against fraudsters, high-value transaction monitoring by the service providers, developing a comprehensive legal document to run mobile money service, were some of the proposed mitigation measures. This study, therefore, provides a baseline survey to help MNO and the government that would wish to implement secure mobile money systems.

With the expansion of smartphone and financial technologies (FinTech), mobile money emerged to improve financial inclusion in many developing nations. The majority of the mobile money schemes used in these nations implement two-factor authentication (2FA) as the only means of verifying mobile money users. These 2FA schemes are vulnerable to numerous security attacks because they only use a personal identification number (PIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM). This study aims to develop a secure and efficient multi-factor authentication algorithm for mobile money applications. It uses a novel approach combining PIN, a one-time password (OTP), and a biometric fingerprint to enforce extra security during mobile money authentication. It also uses a biometric fingerprint and quick response (QR) code to confirm mobile money withdrawal. The security of the PIN and OTP is enforced by using secure hashing algorithm-256 (SHA-256), a biometric fingerprint by Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) that uses a standard public key cryptography technique (RSA), and Fernet encryption to secure a QR code and the records in the databases. The evolutionary prototyping model was adopted when developing the native mobile money application prototypes to prove that the algorithm is feasible and provides a higher degree of security. The developed applications were tested, and a detailed security analysis was conducted. The results show that the proposed algorithm is secure, efficient, and highly effective against the various threat models. It also offers secure and efficient authentication and ensures data confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, user anonymity, and privacy. The performance analysis indicates that it achieves better overall performance compared with the existing mobile money systems.

With the fusion of information communication technology (ICT) in higher institutions of learning, new teaching and learning practices have developed—often called blended learning—allowing students and teachers to interact with information and each other more independently. This study, therefore, analyses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of blended learning in the Public Universities of Uganda, in a case study of Muni University. Descriptive survey design was employed in the research. The target sample of the survey was 25 lecturers and 189 students selected using a stratified random sampling technique from the three faculties. A questionnaire was employed in this study and the data collected were analyzed using SPSS Version 25. The findings of the study identified accessibility, positive attitude, and knowledge and skills as the major motivators for blended learning. The strengths of blended learning found included serving many students in a short time, university readiness, connected both in and out of class, basic IT skills and top management commitment. The weaknesses included low bandwidth and unstable internet, lack of a plagiarism tool, insufficient numbers of computers and dependent on internet connectivity. Opportunities cited were competency-based systems that made it easier to manage individual progress in line with university expansion plans, an accessible way of learning regardless of location and available external support. The threats included unreliable power supply, unreliable internet connection, exchanges of username and passwords by students, internet shorthand used in student assignments. Based on these results, the study provides a baseline to help government and public universities that would like to implement or newly incorporate blended learning to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the blended learning approach. The survey urges that plagiarism plugins for Moodle and BigBlue Button should be added, steady power supply should be provided, internet accessibility should be improved, blended learning training and workshops need to be improved and finally, policies, rules and standards pertaining to blended learning should be enacted.

Financial technology (FinTech) has swiftly revolutionized mobile money as one of the ways of accessing financial services in developing countries. Numerous mobile money applications were developed to access mobile money services but are hindered by severe authentication security challenges, thus, forcing the researchers to design a secure multi-factor authentication (MFA) algorithm for mobile money applications. Three prototypes of native mobile money applications (G-MoMo applications) were developed to confirm that the algorithm provides high security and is feasible. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the usability of the G-MoMo applications using heuristic evaluation and usability testing to identify potential usability issues and provide recommendations for improvement. Heuristic evaluation and usability testing methods were used to evaluate the G-MoMo applications. The heuristic evaluation was carried out by five experts that used the 10 principles proposed by Jakob Nielsen with a five-point severity rating scale to identify the usability problems. While the usability testing was conducted with forty participants selected using a purposive sampling method to validate the usability of the G-MoMo applications by performing tasks and filling out the post-test questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed in RStudio software. Sixty-three usability issues were identified during heuristic evaluation, where 33 were minor and 30 were major. The most violated heuristic items were "help and documentation", and "user control and freedom", while the least violated heuristic items were "aesthetic and minimalist design" and "visibility of system status". The usability testing findings revealed that the G-MoMo applications' performance proved good in learnability, effectiveness, efficiency, memorability, and errors. It also provided user satisfaction, ease of use, aesthetics, usefulness, integration, and understandability. Therefore, it was highly recommended that the developers of G-MoMo applications fix the identified usability problems to make the applications more reliable and increase overall user satisfaction.