Serious Discussion Is Iphone still better at security than Android ?

I think it is up for debate, with android you can sideload apps, so you can install anything you want, including malware if you're not careful. However, android is open source so if there are any vulnerabilities it could be easier to discover and patch.

iOS, on the other hand, is not open source, so it is harder for just anyone to discover a vulnerability. But with iOS, at least in most places in the world, you can't sideload apps, you must get it from the app store. So you are much less likely to get malware on it.

Now I must say, Google is trying to restrict sideloading in the future. They say, for security reasons, every developer of sideloaded software must still register with Google even if their app is not on the Google Play Store. But others say this is to prevent users from installing certain kinds of apps, censorship in effect. Now, this will certainly improve security, but you will lose the freedom android once had. This new police isn't in effect yet, I think it rolls out globally in 2027.

I have been an iPhone user for almost 10 years, partly because of security, but mostly for other reasons as well. But for you, it will depend on what is more important for you.
 
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Maybe, but I think nowadays Samsung's Android (One UI with maximum restrictions for Auto Blocker) could be even better at security compared to iPhone.


For reference:
www.samsung.com

Protect your Galaxy device with the Auto Blocker feature

A guide to discover effective strategies to safeguard your Samsung device with Auto Blocker. Learn how to prevent installing unauthorized apps, secure your device against malicious activity, and enhance privacy and security.
www.samsung.com www.samsung.com

Introduction to Samsung Knox mobile security | Fundamentals | Samsung Knox Documentation

docs.samsungknox.com docs.samsungknox.com
 
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lokamoka820 said:
I don't think iPhone more secure than android these days, I think user behavior is the biggest factor here.
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Agree. User factor is numero uno.

Another difference in Apple and Android is the jailbreaking or Dev options to install unknown apps outside of each store.

Enabling Dev Options so you can sideload/install from unknown sources in Android is easier done by the average users. Unlike in Apple, a jb today might not work in the following weeks as the exploit kit could become irrelevant after an IOS Update making it harder for end users.
 
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Berny said:
Security on iPhone :

“ All third-party apps are “sandboxed,” so they are restricted from accessing files stored by other apps or from making changes to the device. “

“ The entire operating system partition is mounted as read-only. “
Click to expand...

Android has sandbox for applications too, but I dont know how they compare to each other.

The Android platform takes advantage of the Linux user-based protection to identify and isolate app resources. This isolates apps from each other and protects apps and the system from malicious apps. To do this, Android assigns a unique user ID (UID) to each Android app and runs it in its own process.

Android uses the UID to set up a kernel-level Application Sandbox. The kernel enforces security between apps and the system at the process level through standard Linux facilities such as user and group IDs that are assigned to apps. By default, apps can't interact with each other and have limited access to the OS. If app A tries to do something malicious, such as read app B's data or dial the phone without permission, it's prevented from doing so because it doesn't have the appropriate default user privileges. The sandbox is simple, auditable, and based on decades-old UNIX-style user separation of processes and file permissions.

Because the Application Sandbox is in the kernel, this security model extends to both native code and OS apps. All of the software above the kernel, such as OS libraries, app framework, app runtime, and all apps, run within the Application Sandbox. On some platforms, developers are constrained to a specific development framework, set of APIs, or language. On Android, there are no restrictions on how an app can be written that are required to enforce security; in this respect, native code is as sandboxed as interpreted code.
Click to expand...

Protections​

Generally, to break out of the Application Sandbox in a properly configured device, one must compromise the security of the Linux kernel. However, similar to other security features, individual protections enforcing the app sandbox are not invulnerable, so defense-in-depth is important to prevent single vulnerabilities from leading to compromise of the OS or other apps.

Android relies on a number of protections to enforce the app sandbox. These enforcements have been introduced over time and have significantly strengthened the original UID-based discretionary access control (DAC) sandbox. Previous Android releases included the following protections:

  • In Android 5.0, SELinux provided mandatory access control (MAC) separation between the system and apps. However, all third-party apps ran within the same SELinux context so inter-app isolation was primarily enforced by UID DAC.
  • In Android 6.0, the SELinux sandbox was extended to isolate apps across the per-physical-user boundary. In addition, Android also set safer defaults for app data: For apps with targetSdkVersion >= 24, default DAC permissions on an app's home dir changed from 751 to 700. This provided safer default for private app data (although apps can override these defaults).
  • In Android 8.0, all apps were set to run with a seccomp-bpf filter that limited the syscalls that apps were allowed to use, thus strengthening the app/kernel boundary.
  • In Android 9 all nonprivileged apps with targetSdkVersion >= 28 must run in individual SELinux sandboxes, providing MAC on a per-app basis. This protection improves app separation, prevents overriding safe defaults, and (most significantly) prevents apps from making their data world accessible.
  • In Android 10 apps have a limited raw view of the filesystem, with no direct access to paths like /sdcard/DCIM. However, apps retain full raw access to their package-specific paths, as returned by any applicable methods, such as Context.getExternalFilesDir().
Click to expand...

Application Sandbox | Android Open Source Project

source.android.com source.android.com
 
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I think it depends on which Android phone. iPhone is still king because of it's design and features but I think but Google with it's Pixel stock Android OS phones are getting close security wise. The problem with Android is the fragmented hardware ecosystem, there are so many models with varying degree of OS and security features. It's a wild soup of design, features and security.

The question you have to ask yourself is why do Government's around the world complain about Apple encryption of iMessage and iCloud all the time? The answer is they probably can't break it or defeat it. How many times do you hear about Government's complaining about Google Drive or RCS or even VPN? Almost never is the right answer. The only time Governemnts complain about Android is when users have flashed GrapheneOS on a Android device.
 
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Only thing nowadays still superior in iphone over Android in terms of security is the boot chain as it has much more verifications
 
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Victor M said:
Security is the most important consideration for me.
Click to expand...
Basically either iphone or pixel (graphene os )
But it depends what surface that threat might try to exploit if it's after the system booted ?
If it's after for example an app , webpage etc I would say Android is as secure
But if it's anything that can happen during the boot process then still iphone is superior



Btw by Android I specifically mean graphene os as that's the secure version of Android
 
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Nightwalker said:
Maybe, but I think nowadays Samsung's Android (One UI with maximum restrictions for Auto Blocker) could be even better at security compared to iPhone.


For reference:
www.samsung.com

Protect your Galaxy device with the Auto Blocker feature

A guide to discover effective strategies to safeguard your Samsung device with Auto Blocker. Learn how to prevent installing unauthorized apps, secure your device against malicious activity, and enhance privacy and security.
www.samsung.com www.samsung.com

Introduction to Samsung Knox mobile security | Fundamentals | Samsung Knox Documentation

docs.samsungknox.com docs.samsungknox.com
Click to expand...
Samsung fork of Android has much bigger attack surface I wouldn't use it if I cared for security
 
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Vitali Ortzi said:
Samsung fork of Android has much bigger attack surface I wouldn't use it if I cared for security
Click to expand...

Samsung Knox (hardware based) and Auto Blocker have more positive impact in security than a theoretical flaw caused by a theoretical bigger attack surface.
 
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Nightwalker said:
Samsung Knox (hardware based) and Auto Blocker have more positive impact in security than a theoretical flaw caused by a theoretical bigger attack surface.
Click to expand...
I mean in general all the other stuff they modified over AOSP there is many published research and cves specifically targeting the modified version of Android Samsung is using

Look at cves that effect only Samsung fork of Android
 
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At stock Iphone is more secure; hence it's owned by majority of CUI gov devices.

As secure as it can get? That award goes to Android and it's special flavor(s) of Android. Due to it's open nature, it can be made much more secure than Iphone but again that goes with usability cost.
 
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