Every dispute for supremacy between fans Android and iOS, when all arguments have already been exhausted, invariably boils down to security. Users iOS are beginning to point out to their opponents Google's mediocre approach to ensuring their security, the abundance of malware under Android and the lack of any control over the software infiltrating Google Play, not to mention updates that Android – smartphones receive every five years. It is logical that no one expected that Android would suddenly be even more protected than iOS.
Is Android safer than iOS? Apparently yes
Judging by the number of vulnerabilities found in the program code of operating systems, Android will be more secure than iOS. This conclusion, contrary to the prevailing stereotype, was made by researchers from the company Zerodium, which specializes in buying and then reselling vulnerabilities to law enforcement agencies and hackers. According to them, recently, security holes iOS have appeared so often that the market has literally overflowed, and the demand for them has dropped, while vulnerabilities for Android have become a real rarity.
How much does it cost to hack Android and iOS
Security updates Android solve quite a few issues
Due to the fact that there are so many vulnerabilities for iOS, they have become much cheaper. If earlier prices could reach $ 2 million for detailed information about the flaw and the tool for its exploitation, now their purchase has been stopped altogether, because they even temporarily stopped buying them. But on Android, on the contrary, the price of vulnerabilities has increased – from about $ 500 thousand earlier to $ 2.5 million now. A colossal leap, if you think about it. Indeed, in just a few years, their price against the background of a deficit has grown almost 5 times.
Practice shows that Android is becoming more and more secure, and finding vulnerabilities in this OS is becoming an increasingly difficult task. Moreover, the protection Android is constantly being improved thanks to monthly security updates and the gradual acceptance by manufacturers that their adaptation cannot be neglected. If earlier the distribution of security patches basically ended on Google Pixel smartphones, now Samsung has actively joined the initiative, which releases updates for its devices even before the 'pixels' receive them.
How to protect yourself from hacking
In general, Google products in general demonstrate a surprisingly high level of security. This is noticeable not only in the example Android, but also in the company's own services. If we directly compare Chrome and Safari, it turns out that it is much more difficult to detect the vulnerability in the Google browser than in the browser Apple. And since Chrome is the main browser for Android and Safari is for iOS, this further widens the gap between systems.
Finding a vulnerability in iOS is easier than in Android
The idea of judging the security of an operating system by the degree of perfection of its defense mechanisms is more correct than taking into account the abundance of malicious software on Google Play and beyond. The fact is that the vast majority of Trojans and similar programs operate on a permissions basis. That is, if the user does not give them privileges to access system functions, they simply cannot perform any manipulations with the device. So, blaming the operating system for the problem is at least wrong.
But who is to blame, then? In my opinion, everything is logical here – you need to blame the users who, firstly, download any trash from the Internet, and, secondly, distribute any privileges to the right and left without understanding why installed applications need them. As a result, we see how users' bank accounts are taken away, accounts in social networks are stolen and spied on, collecting colossal amounts of information. And all this is due to their own negligence.