Android vs iOS App Security: A Comparative Study

iOS-vs-Android

Every day the television networks, advertising on social networks and even the comments of Apple users, riddle us with the fact that the IOS system is much safer than Android. But are these claims totally accurate?

Following a study conducted by AppSec-Labs and Checkmarx on security within Android and iOS applications, they concluded that iOS applications are more insecure , have more vulnerabilities than Android applications.

This study provides us with interesting data on the vulnerabilities found in both systems by analyzing hundreds of applications:

More than 9,000 vulnerabilities were found , but more than half are not critical.

Critical vulnerabilities: 15% in iOS compared to 11% in Android.

Minimal vulnerabilities: 32% on iOS vs 39% Android.

Security not only depends on the operating system (Android or iOS) but also on the Android or IOS applications themselves. For this reason, it is recommended that you do not install applications outside the official houses of the Play Store or App Store.

Regarding the official markets, it seems a priori that the App Store is more rigorous with security since they do not publish an application until it is reviewed, on the other hand with the Play Store, which does so once it has been published. But we must be aware that this is not everything in the security of mobile applications, its development is more important.

How to improve security in Android and IOS applications

To prevent the different security vulnerabilities, both for Android applications and for IOS apps , the recommendations are clear:

1. Quality training in secure code.

For developers this is a key factor. Good training in secure code leads to good development practices in the security field. It seems that in Android this is more consolidated.

2. Do not develop with external mechanisms.

We refer to this that we should not develop our applications in the field of security using external tools to those provided by the application core itself.

3. Code audit.

We refer to audits as the process that analyzes the source code of our application in order to find security vulnerabilities, security design improvements in programming practices. We must do this before it is too late to change it.

The perception that the digital community has is that Android has many more vulnerabilities than iOS due to the constant publication of vulnerabilities in Android. Although this data is just the opposite since once a vulnerability is published, work is done to solve it. On the other hand, in iOS it is more complicated for this information to be public, and therefore, its solution is more difficult.

Another point in favor of Android is that its system is open to all users and the community can search for new vulnerabilities and even solutions. iOS by not sharing its code is more complicated to detect these vulnerabilities and less to solve them.

The conclusion of all this is that we should not only look at the security of the Android or iOS operating systems that the media constantly sell us, but also the security of the mobile applications that they offer us. Both systems may be better in some areas than the rest, but generally speaking, the biggest firewall is how we prevent how we use mobile devices.

At Create An App we do not take the issue of security in the mobile app development lightly, which is why the versions of our Android and IOS applications are built on the necessary foundations to guarantee security on both devices. Do not hesitate to contact our mobile app development company to develop a secure mobile app for Android and iOS.

Summary

The debate over which mobile operating system is more secure, Android or iOS, is one that has been going on for some time. A new study has taken a closer look at the two systems and their security features, in order to better understand which is more secure. The study found that both Android and iOS have a number of security features that make them both secure platforms. However, there are some differences between the two that should be taken into account.

Android is a more open platform than iOS, which means that there are more opportunities for malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities. However, Android has a number of security features, such as app sandboxing and permission controls, that help to mitigate these risks.

iOS is a closed platform, which means that it is more difficult for malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities. However, the closed nature of iOS also means that there are fewer security features available to users.

Overall, the study found that both Android and iOS are secure platforms. However, Android is more likely to be exploited by malicious actors due to its more open nature.

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