Android vs. iOS: The Security Battle

Smartphones are one of the most demanding popular technologies in this current era of thechnology. They are comfortable for personnel use, and their adaptable functionalities give them a reputation in current competitive technology world. One of the important functionalities of these devices is to store - personal data of the users. The personal data of an user contains privacy and sensitive information which is very important. That is why now-a-days, the smartphones become primary target of a hacker. Therefore, the security technology of the smartphones becomes one of the prime research concerns within the smartphone research community. In the world of smartphones' operating systems, iOS and Android are considered the leaders. This paper focuses on those two operating systems in terms of their adopted security technologies. A review on security technologies of iOS and Android literature is presented in this research article. Furthermore, the policies and security mechanisms of the existing security models for these (iOS and Android) operating systems (OS) are discussed. Threats and malwares which target the iOS or Android are reviewed generally and specially. Two taxonomies for attacks are selected from literature and discussed for both the operating systems. Finally, the paper makes a comparison between iOS and Android based on different security criteria. The reviews result try to answer the difficult question "which OS is more secure between iOS and Android?".