Trend Micro says iOS a 'more secure platform' than Android

Closed systems are always more secure than open ones.

However, Apple has taken additional steps beyond just obscuring the underlying code that makes iOS secure. Granted, yes, if Android was closed we'd have a fairer comparison, but when you compare this issue to PCs, Windows is a closed system also, and yet it is still less secure than Macintosh.

iOS is more secure because it has been designed to be that way. Android has been designed to compete with iOS at the expense of security.

Both platforms are susceptible to social engineering attacks, especially through Web Pages and Web Apps.
Theoretically iOS is more secure due to Apps being Sandboxed and Quality Controlled by the App Store, but it is also still vulnerable to any security holes found in any of the other system components, such as the recent PDF vulnerability.
Android could be made secure, and being Open Source doesn't actually increase any security risk, but but being an Open Platform; not having the Quality Controls and other App restrictions does create gaping security holes.
Unfortunately, Google aren't interested in closing these holes as that would impinge on their "Open" marketing buzzword. Most hardware manufacturers aren't interested in securing their implementations of Android because they aren't interested in providing Customers with a good experience, only in moving Units. Customer Retention isn't something they put a lot of value in for some insane reason.

WELL DUH.

Android is open. Crap like malware get's into the marketplace.

Android is far more insecure than iOS by design, though not necessarily because of its open source nature and is already suffering the fallout despite having half the installed base worldwide.

The proof is in the pudding. It is Android and the Android Marketplace that has suffered multiple malware outbreaks such as:

- More than 50 Android mobile banking apps in the Android Marketplace each targeted at a specific financial institution whose true purpose was phishing and identity theft.
- A wallpaper app that was downloaded 4 million times which maliciously forwarded user details to a location in China before being discovered.
- the Geinimi botnet app that is infecting numerous Android apps on Chinese app stores and spreading around the world.
- Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, the Russian "Movie player" app that surreptitiously sent premium SMS texts from unsuspecting users
- Brand new HTC Magic phones infected with the Mariposa botnet and Conficker and a Lineage password-stealing Trojan that attempt to infect Windows PCs when connected onver USB.
- Mobile Spy and Mobile Stealth
- SMS Message Spy Pro and SMS Message Spy Lite spyware apps
- The 45,000 spamware apps clogging up the Android Marketplace (as noted by Appbrain)

In contrast, despite hosting over a third of a million apps and 7 billion downloads, there have been Zero pieces of malware come through the iOS App Store. A 100% safety record. Not bad, and good reassurance for a public tired of virus-riddled PCs.

Then of course there is the side-loading of apps with absolutely any nasty thing being possible in Android and no review of apps at all in the Marketplace and we are talking a completely different level of insecurity and exposure.

iOS requires signed code and enforces strict sand-boxing and provides hardware encryption all of which Android lacks. Instead Android throws up a Vista-like screen of permissions for each app which the average user is not necessarily going to read or understand.
All developers on the iOS store have far more stringent monetary and ID checks to post apps so the chances of mischief are so much less as to be negligible in comparison.

ps. Of course if you jail-break your iPhone, all bets are off.

-Mart

Without commenting the article itself, I will just state that "security through obscurity is not real security." If your security relies on keeping details of the system secret, then your system can be compromised if those details are discovered.

This doesn't mean that iOS is inherently more or less secure than Android as far as userspace goes, just that 'the system's details are obscured' is never a good basis to judge a platform's security.

I blogged on this awhile back. iOS and RIM are the only platforms that offer full device encryption. As a card carrying Linux geek it pains me to say, iOS is much safer:

http://geekyschmidt.com/2011/01/04/y-u-no-encrypt