Android is Now as Secure as iOS!
David Kleidermacher, Google’s head of security for Android, seems to be stating, without taking names, that Android is now as secure as iOS.
Kleidermacher has made this statement in an interview with CNET, but without taking names. CNET reports- “According to David Kleidermacher, Google’s head of security for Android, Google Play and the Chrome operating system since May, the Android team is hard at work to make the worries surrounding these bugs a thing of the past…In fact, Kleidermacher said, without naming any names, Android is now as safe as the competition…That’s a big claim, considering that Android’s main competitor is Apple’s iPhone. ”
Kleidermacher has reportedly told CNET that “Android flaws have become harder for researchers to find and that the software now protects users from malicious software so well the problems that used to leave users exposed to bad actors aren’t such a big problem anymore.”
It’s not that iOS is immune to malware, but over the past few years, it has been more secure than Android. In the meantime, Google has been making great advances as regards making Android more secure despite the fact that researchers would every now and then come up unearthing nasty Android exploits.
The thoughts that David Kleidermacher shared in the interview with CNET are also reflected in Google’s recently released “Android Security: 2017 Year In Review” report. The report states emphatically- “Android security made a significant leap forward in 2017 and many of our protections now lead the industry.”
The report also says- “In 2017, we improved Android security in a variety of ways, such as reducing the number of PHAs on devices and in Google Play, improving security visibility and control for users with Google Play Protect, and reducing vulnerability exploitation with faster security updates. To make these changes, we collaborated closely with device manufacturers, system on a chip (SoC) vendors, telecom carriers, and Android researchers and academics.”
Google has been taking very notable steps to strengthen Android security. While Apple can deliver security updates directly to the iPhones, Android has to send the updates to the companies that sell Android phones, who’d deliver the updates. David Kleidermacher states that these issues can be solved by “…”retrofitting” security into Android phones”. Similarly, Android flaws are now becoming difficult and expensive to find and hence attackers are not able to launch attacks as easily as they earlier used to. Android being a global, open source project, there is always a community of defenders who collaborate to locate the deeper vulnerabilities and develop the mitigations. Google is also getting Android phone makers to agree to regular update schedules and is also building in tools that can protect the phones from malicious apps without taking away users’ rights to download apps from outside Google Play Store.
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