Symantec calls Apple's iOS more secure than Google's Android

Recently, Symantic came out with its latest report, in which it ranked Apple's iOS as more secure in comparison to Google's Android. The report dubbed "A Window Into Mobile Device Security," includes 23 pages, in which the security approaches used by Apple and Google in its mobile operating systems are described. Apart from this, the report also emphasizes the past and possible future holes found in the iOS and Android platforms.

The report made close comparisons of both the platforms and reached on the conclusion that iOS offers full protection against malware attacks, while its counterpart offers only a little.

The report also ranked iOS higher than Android for protection against resource abuse and service attacks, data loss, and data integrity attacks. Moving further, even the fields like access control, application provenance, and encryption were found to be more securely protected by iOS.

Isolation was the only security category, in which Google's Android was termed as better than iOS. Android received highest marks for this category, while iOS was told to offer moderate protection.

On the whole, the report by Symantec credited the provenance approach of Apple for building a steady security barrier. This because all of the apps, before getting launched on the App store has to undergo vetting procedures. The report said that this avoids malware attacks, data loss attacks, data integrity attacks, and denial of service attacks.

While coming over to Android, Symantec pointed out two major weaknesses in it. The report said, “First, the provenance system in place enables attackers to anonymously create and distribute malware. In addition, its permission system relies upon the user to make the important security decisions, and considering most of Android users are not of high technical capability, this causes problems.”

But the report did term Google's mobile operating system as an enormous improvement over traditional desktop operating systems.