Disabling old versions of the Sber application may affect 5-10 million customers
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On January 16, Sber will stop supporting outdated versions of the mobile application. This was reported by TASS with reference to the press service of the bank. This will affect a small number of bank customers whom Sberbank warned in advance by SMS.
The press service of Sberbank did not specify to Vedomosti by the time the material was published which specific versions of the application are considered “outdated”. At the same time, one of the iPhone users with version 12.3 received a notification about the need to update the application. But one of the employees of Vedomosti with an earlier version of the application 12.15 on the iOS operating system did not receive such a notice.
Outdated in this case may be those versions of applications for iOS and Android that were installed by customers before the removal of Sberbank from the App Store and Google Play in the spring of 2022, suggests Alexey Skobelev, founder and CEO of Markswebb. According to him, the shutdown of obsolete applications announced by Sber could affect 5-6 million customers.
Laurent Hakobyan, CEO of the iPavlov AI company, generally agrees with this assessment, but he does not rule out that even 10 million “victims” may be involved. According to Skobelev, Sber announced 70 million active users of the mobile application “Sberbank Online”.
Although the ratio of smartphone users on iOS and Android in Russia is about 1 to 7, iPhone owners will be the first to suffer, Skobelev points out. This is due to the fact that Russian banks that have been sanctioned have learned to deliver new releases of their applications to Android quite well, bypassing Google Play through alternative app stores or their own websites, while iOS users cannot use such altstores, the expert explains.
Problems with the Sberbank app arose after the Sberbank Online app was removed from the App Store and Google Play in the spring of 2022 due to sanctions imposed by the United States. After that, Sber made several more attempts to return the application to the markets under the name SBOL, but this version was also deleted. Other Russian banks faced similar problems – PSB, Alfa Bank“Opening“, Sovcombank and etc.
Now all clients of the bank have access to the web version “Sberbank Online”. Owners of Android devices can update the application on the bank’s website or in the Russian mobile app store RuStore, and owners of iOS devices can contact the bank’s office, Sber previously reported.
On January 12, Vedomosti wrote that iPhone users can install an application removed from the App Store directly at Sberbank branches. To do this, you need to connect your smartphone via a cable to a corporate computer, after which “Apple sends official permission to the device in the form of a six-digit code,” and the SBOL application is installed on the phone, the department employee explained. At the same time, most likely the smaller part of Sber’s clients who used “Sberbank Online” on their iPhones, was updating the application to the office, Skobelev believes.
The customer experience will temporarily degrade significantly, especially for iOS users who will have no choice but to install the app at the branch, Hakobyan warns. For Android users, the main difficulties will be related to the fact that RuStore has not yet enough experience for well-coordinated interaction with application developers, and which may affect the speed of their updates.
A fairly large number of mobile device users are conservative, they try not to update important applications, including banking ones, in order to avoid their breakdown or redesign, which is dangerous, emphasizes Sergei Matusevich, Artezio web technology development director. The main risks are the lack of support from the bank in terms of eliminating information security vulnerabilities, explains Alexei Yakovlev, director of the cybersecurity group of the management consulting department at DRT.
A smartphone with an installed client can be hacked and actually be in the hands of technically trained attackers, Evgeny Rodygin, an information security expert at Cyberprotect, warns. Under such conditions, an attacker can take full control of the application and even intercept or spoof data, he says.
The user is vulnerable to threats that an attacker can find in this version of the software and use it, for example, to steal funds, admits Yakovlev. In this case, the bank will not be responsible and will not be able to help the user in case of loss of funds, the expert adds. After all, the bank in this case reduces its costs for maintaining different versions of the software and the cost of the system of protection against intruders, he concludes.
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