14 DAY TRIAL // Speaking to The Register in Sydney, Australia, Eugene Kaspersky revealed that Apple is walking on thin ice, at least in his opinion, as the company is refusing the help of antivirus (AV) vendors when it comes to iOS, the underlying software of iPhones and iPads worldwide.
Kaspersky told interviewers, “We as a security company are not able to develop true endpoint security for iOS. That will mean disaster for Apple,” he stressed, adding that it’ll only be a matter of time before malware comes the way of iOS.
Admitting iOS is a rock-solid operating system, “by design [...] more secure [than other operating systems]”, the Russian said it would be “almost impossible to develop malware which does not use vulnerabilities. The only way is to inject it into the source code of legal software. It will take place in a marketplace and then there will be millions or tens of millions of devices.”
He explained that criminals have avoided iOS so far because it is more complicated than other platforms: “They are happy with Windows computers. Now they are happy with Mac. They are happy with Android,” he said.
However, Eugene Kaspersky cautioned that, although it is much more difficult to infect iOS, “it is possible and when it happens it will be the worst-case scenario because there will be no protection.”
In other words, Apple will have to worry a lot more about security when it ships iOS 6 and, later, iOS 7 (and so forth).
“The Apple SDK won’t let us do it,” he said, referring to the software development kit offered by Apple to third-party programmers to code their apps with.
The chief of the Russian security firm, Kaspersky, said Android would have much to gain from a potential widespread attack on iOS platforms. Admitting Android is less secure, he said Google at least offers developers the chance to develop security software for the platform.