Mobile e-commerce (hereinafter m-commerce) is a new shiny spot for enterprise’s informatization. It will be broadly put into practice in the coming years. Many commentators believe that m-commerce services will be the next biggest growth area in the telecommunications market, representing the fusion of two of the current consumer technologies: mobile communications and e-commerce. Whether the ambitious forecasts will be realized is immaterial; as an industry, telecommunications is being driven rapidly toward this goal.

For example, according to the data from Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of Chin, till the end of June 2008, the number of China’s mobile phone users reaches 601 million (China 2008). Also, in accordance with “the 22nd Statistical Report on the Internet Development in China” by China Internet Network Information Center (CCNIC) released in July 2008, surfing the Internet with cell phone has become an important development orientation for network applications and will inevitably accelerate the popularization of the Internet. At present, 28.9 % of the Chinese netizens accessed the Internet with cell phone in the past half year, and the amount of cell phone netizens has reached 73.05 million (CNNIC 2008).

Mobile communications is now considered a relatively mature technology with the move from second to third generation systems and with its high consumer acceptance. However, older network technologies are still present in many parts of the world with the associated problems of cloning and eavesdropping, while services that are badly designed and implemented, together with new attack methods, combine to result in continued reports of loss, even where the security of the underlying technology is relatively sound.

E-commerce is a relatively new technology that is slowly gaining consumer acceptance, despite a background of fears surrounding security issues. An informal poll at a recent telecommunications conference revealed that around 30 % of delegates had made use of e-commerce services, but only around 10 % used them regularly, demonstrating that even those in the business made little use of them. Although the reasons for the lack of uptake are many and varied, at least part of the problem can be attributed to security fears, reinforced by the media attention surrounding every failure.

M-commerce is bringing together these two technologies with a history of security problems. Coupled with the convergence of voice and data communications, interconnection with external data networks and issues surrounding the transactions themselves, the potential risks are possibly very large indeed (Messham xxx).

Generally speaking, currently, because consumers lack confidence on the security problems of the mobile networks, it becomes the biggest challenge of the development of m-commerce. Therefore, this article wants to explore the security problem in mobile business in general and in particular and discusses some feasible solutions. Finally, this article brings out the conclusion.