Why banks in Malaysia are moving away from SMS verification? | Ask Us Anything #41

Welcome back to another episode of Ask Us Anything, where we gather your questions from the internet and answer them.

In today’s episode, we find out what you need to use Apple’s ECG app in Malaysia, why Malaysian banks are moving away from SMS authentication and a couple of questions regarding the Asus ROG Phone 6.

What do you need in order to use Apple’s ECG app in Malaysia?

Apple’s electrocardiogram or ECG app is listed as a registered medical device by the Medical Device Authority or MDA, a regulatory body under the Ministry of Health since 1st February 2021. The ECG app together with the Apple Watch can detect irregular rhythms in your heart and signs of Atrial Fibrillation or AFib.

This feature is available on the Apple Watch Series 4 and later. However, it’s not available on the Apple Watch SE variants. You will need to update both your iPhone and Apple Watch to the latest version of iOS and watchOS respectively. Or just make sure they are running at least iOS 14.6 and watchOS 7.5. But there’s one more requirement which is you need to be 22 years old and above.

To take an ECG reading, launch the app and hold your finger on the digital crown. This completes the circuit, and the watch will measure the electrical signals across your heart. The whole process takes 30 seconds, and it will let you know if your heart rhythm is classified as either AFib, AFib with high heart rate, sinus rhythm, low or high heart rate, inconclusive or poor reading.

Your ECG readings are stored privately in your Health app and can be shared with your doctor via a PDF document.

Now, if you have an Apple Watch that does not have ECG hardware like the Series 3 or SE, but has an optical heart rate sensor, you can still receive notifications of irregular rhythm or signs of AFib. The watch will perform 5 rhythm checks over a minimum of 65 minutes in the background.

The difference here is that the information provided by the optical heart rate sensor is not as detailed as the ECG sensor and you can’t measure your heart’s rhythm at will.

Why are Malaysian banks moving away from SMS authentication?

Well, each bank will have its own reasons for wanting to move away from SMS authentication and promoting the use of its companion app for authentications. But here are two main reasons.

The first is because of SIM jacking. This is where the hijacker gains access to your mobile number and uses that to access text messages, contacts, and in the case of this question, financial accounts. Using your phone number to receive the verification code, the hijacker can reset the passwords of your financial accounts.

Next reason is the fact that SMS is not end-to-end encrypted, making it easy for a middleman to intercept it. Also, if there is malware living on your smartphone, it can easily capture the information stored on the SMS.

With the app developed by the bank, all information is encrypted and the app itself has built-in security measures to mitigate a malware attack. Therefore, by comparison with SMS, the mobile banking app is more secure.

A couple of questions about the Asus ROG Phone 6

What’s the difference the between ROG Phone 6 and ROG Phone 6 Pro?

There’s not a lot of difference between the models. What you get extra with the ROG Phone 6 Pro is the ROG Vision PMOLED display on the back of the phone instead of an RGB ROG logo and 18GB of RAM.

There aren’t many mobile games that can take advantage of 18GB of RAM, therefore the 16GB of RAM on the standard model is more than enough.

Does the ROG Phone 6 Pro come with an AeroActive cooler?

Actually, neither the ROG Phone 6 nor the ROG Phone 6 Pro come with an Aero Active cooler in the box.

Only the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate comes with an Aero Active cooler included in the box. This is the variant powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ instead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. For more information on the ROG Phone 6D series in Malaysia, be sure to check out Mr Raymond‘s coverage.

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