I’ve had an iphone for a while (the newer 3g one)and while I use it for a lot of web browsing, I have not yet done any online payments/checking bank acc/paypal etc. Will most online bank websites allow access from a mobile/smartphone?

do the have AV software as standard and how secure are they? any extra apps you can install for added web security?

Yes online banks etc generally allow it.

These type of websites (the ones that start with https rather than http) encrypt everything that goes between you and them – so I’d say it is roughly about as secure as using your home PC.

There is no AV software at the moment as none is currently needed. The only way to install new apps is via the App Store and these apps are all approved by Apple. There are no iPhone viruses at the moment and it is pretty unlikely there will be unless they change the security.

Ta, sounds promising. Have Apple paid off all the hackers then 😉

It’s not that but more the fact that you can only currently install software on an iPhone via the iTunes store. So it’s as secure as Apple’s ability to make sure they don’t sanction insecure software and allow it to be distributed via their store. As such I think the chances are extremely low that an iPhone is going to catch a virus..

..currently 🙂

It’s no different from any other platform really. The likes of First Direct are happy to support internet banking from the iPhone.

And even if a dodgy app slipped past the Apple inspection and made it to App Store then it would still struggle to do virussy/malware things because the iPhone apps can’t run in the background and it would have no way to spread.

cheers for the info, sounds nice and secure then. Not tried jailbreaking it yet so it should still be protected by the app store I guess.

Yeah obviously if you jailbreak it then all bets are off.