Super apps are the cornerstones of modern digital life, embedding financial transactions into nearly every aspect of daily routine. The prevailing security paradigm for these platforms is overwhelmingly focused on pre-transaction authentication, preventing unauthorized payments before they occur. We argue that a critical vulnerability vector has been largely overlooked: the fragility of post-transaction audit trails. We investigate the ease with which a user can permanently erase their transaction history from an app's interface, thereby concealing unauthorized or sensitive activities from the account owner. To quantify this threat, we conducted an empirical study with 6 volunteers who performed a cross-evaluation on six super apps. Our findings are alarming: all six applications studied allow users to delete transaction records, yet a staggering five out of six (83+\%) fail to protect these records with strong authentication. Only one app in our study required biometric verification for deletion. This study provides the first concrete evidence of this near-ubiquitous vulnerability, demonstrating a critical gap in the current mobile security landscape and underscoring the urgent need for a paradigm shift towards ensuring post-transaction audit integrity.
翻译:超级应用是现代数字生活的基石,几乎将金融交易嵌入日常生活的方方面面。这些平台的主流安全范式高度聚焦于交易前身份验证,旨在防止未经授权的支付行为发生。我们认为,一个关键漏洞向量在很大程度上被忽视了:交易后审计追踪的脆弱性。我们研究了用户从应用界面永久删除其交易历史的便捷程度,从而向账户所有者隐藏未经授权或敏感的活动。为量化这一威胁,我们开展了一项实证研究,招募6名志愿者对六款超级应用进行交叉评估。研究结果令人震惊:所有六款应用均允许用户删除交易记录,但其中高达五款(83%以上)未能通过强身份验证保护这些记录。在我们的研究中,仅有一款应用要求生物特征验证以执行删除操作。本研究首次为这一近乎普遍存在的漏洞提供了具体证据,揭示了当前移动安全领域的关键缺陷,并强调了亟需向确保交易后审计完整性进行范式转变的紧迫性。