Is Android security is as good as iOS on the iPhone?
- Fariha Khan
- November 7, 2016
- 452
The Android security has been an issue. Despite patches deployed directly by Google on a monthly basis, the sluggishness of mediators like carriers and OEMs has put the entire platform in a stance of doubt, particularly when compared with the more vertically integrated iOS. BUT Android’s director of security Adrian Ludwig does not agree to this.
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Following a security conference in Manhattan on November 2, Ludwig talked about Google’s progressions in securing its mobile platform. He placed it in direct comparison with its competitor iOS. He remarked that they are almost the same with regard to their platform-level capabilities.
Android is going to be BETTER…
When inquired if the two are equal in terms of security, Ludwig said that they are without any doubt and Android security will soon “be better”. “In the long term, the open ecosystem of Android is going to put it in a much better place.”
He did talk about Android’s built-in security product “Safety Net”, saying that the service scans almost 400 million devices and over 6 billion apps a day. The results of these checks harmonized with the safety processes built into the OS make sure that a very small number of devices is left out and thus possibly subject of malware. In a graph he showed less than 1% of Android devices resulted affected. He brought last year’s much-discussed Stagefright security breach into the discussion, affirming that despite the detection of various critical bugs, a real-life hack on an Android device is yet to be seen.
It does not imply that there isn’t much to be done both Google’s side as well as the carriers’ and the manufacturers’. “We got quite a bit of work left to do to get to a point where that actually happens on a regular basis across the whole the ecosystem,” Ludwig stated.
But as for big, platform-wise damaging uses are concerned we should be satisfied as targeting a large number of people simultaneously is “almost impossible”.
“Mass exploitation is something that I’m not expecting that we’re going to see at any point in the Android ecosystem” said Ludwig about Android security.