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How Apple's iOS Went From Insecure To Most Secure

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shaking-in-my-boots dept.

GMGruman writes "There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system, but security experts agree — somewhat grudgingly in some cases — that iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, is the most secure commercial OS today, mobile or desktop. It didn't start that way of course, and Robert Lemos explains what Apple did to go from insecure to most secure."

5 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Frist to get jailbroken... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wait... aren't we talking about the same iOS that gets jailbroken like clockwork still?

    1. Re:Frist to get jailbroken... by MrCrassic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Considering that the last major jailbreak used a PDF rendering exploit in Safari to allow users to jailbreak their devices online, which requires modifications to files in system directories, I'd highly beg to differ.

      And while jailbreaks for iOS happen for almost every point release, they are getting tougher and tougher to find (as in it takes the dev-team more and more time to find a patch).

    2. Re:Frist to get jailbroken... by Enry · · Score: 5, Funny

      Jailbreaking is not really a security problem. Firstly, because "jailbreaking" just means allowing unsigned code to run.

      Why don't you re-read that and tell me where your logic flaw is.

  2. An ultimately secure OS by dmt0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    An ultimately secure OS would be the one that does not do anything at all. No inputs and no outputs. Perhaps iOS is closer to that ideal than any other.

  3. Um.. No by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OpenBSD has been at it a lot longer. Even as a Linux Zealot, I would choose OpenBSD for security. IOS is a closed Black-Box that nobody but Stevie knows what's inside. Historically we tend to find *cough*siemens*cough* that closed source, proprietary *cough*secureid*cough* offerings do not necessarily equate to a trustworthy or "secure" system. What seems to happen is closed source options provide a layer of obscurity which allow the governing company *cough*dropbox*cough* to take inexcusable risks with customers assets because, basically, they don't need to show anybody. As long as they never get caught, they save a lot of money not having to implement a system to keep them honest.

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