Android Less Secure Than iPhone

Let the waling begin! The chairman of world number one antivirus maker Trend Micro, which is based in Japan, has just uttered what might be the mobile security soundbite of the year, one sure to rile the more ardent users of Google’s smartphone operating system.

“Android is open-source, which means the hacker can also understand the underlying architecture and source code,” Steve Chang, chairman, Trend Micro told Bloomberg. “We have to give credit to Apple, because they are very careful about it. It’s impossible for certain types of viruses” to operate on the iPhone.

As you’d expect, Trend Micro offers Mobile Security for Android, which sells for the modest sum of $4 a pop. However, with more than 250-million users worldwide, Google’s mobile operating system presents a huge and potentially lucrative for the company which has seen sales shrink in recent years.

“Smartphones are the next PC, and once they’re adopted by enterprises, data loss will be a very key problem,” added Chang. “Apple has a sandbox concept that isolates the platform, which prevents certain viruses that want to replicate themselves or decompose and recompose to avoid virus scanners.”

So, Android is less secure in no small part because it’s open source — that certainly goes against the image the Linux et al crowd has been pushing for years…

What’s your take?