Citi Fixes, Discloses iPhone App Security Glitch

Citi has been remarkably proactive and upfront about a mobile banking glitch affecting users of its iPhone app. The bank identified a problem with the application in a routine security review, created a fix for it, and notified customers about it in a letter dated July 20.

"During a recent review, we discovered that our U.S. Citi Mobile iPhone banking app was accidentally saving information related to customer accounts in a hidden file on their iPhones," the company said in a statement. "This information may also have been saved on their computer if they had been synchronizing their iPhone with their computer via iTunes."The bank does not believe any customer data was accessed or use inappropriately by anyone. It says mobile services for credit card customers were not affected by the mobile banking glitch.

Citi launched the iPhone app in March 2009 in conjunction with mobile financial services provider mFoundry.