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Apple's Walled Garden Appears to Prevent iOS Malware

posted by n1 on Saturday June 14 2014, @09:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the safer-in-the-bubble dept.

janrinok writes:

ZDNet have put out a story claiming that, although Apple's walled-garden approach is not popular with everybody, it does appear to have prevented almost all malware from becoming prevalent on iOS. From the article:

Everyone knows there's no iOS malware, right? Strictly speaking, there is. As a practical matter, there isn't. At least if you stick with the official Apple store, you are more likely to win Powerball than to be hit by iOS malware.

But to make that "strictly speaking" point, FortiGuard Labs's Axelle Apvrille ("the Crypto Girl") felt it necessary to list all the iOS malware on record all 11 instances, eight of which work only on jailbroken phones.

[....]

It's not like iOS isn't an inviting target. There are zillions of devices out there and iOS customers have shown that they are willing to spend money on apps. And there absolutely are ways that iPhones can be attacked, although more likely through vulnerabilities, especially in Safari, than through malicious apps.

In fact, Apple's rules for what it will allow in its App Store are so strict that they effectively ban security software. It's a good thing there is next to no malware, because what you would need to do to block it on your phone is not permitted. Android, on the other hand, has a burgeoning market for security software and no shortage of malware.

Do you agree with this assessment?

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @12:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @12:49AM (#55440)

    Yes, Windows is perhaps so open that its brains fall out. If we go by analogies with countries, perhaps Windows would be like Somalia (absolute anarchy leading to chaos), GNU/Linux like perhaps one of the Scandinavian countries (perhaps Finland where it was born, reasonable levels of control), Android/Linux perhaps like the United States (Google, like the NSA, is always watching you), and iOS like maybe Singapore (nanny state with a lot of irritating arbitrary rules). I don't know what an OS with policies analogous to China, the old Soviet Union, or North Korea would be like. Perhaps one of those absolute lock-down systems that supposedly exist to process highly classified data.