Apple iOS has 10 times more vulnerabilities than Android

Apple's iOS platform has 182 more known vulnerabilities at present than Google's Android OS, according to security firm Symantec.

The Window Into Mobile Device Security white paper analysed the Apple and Android platforms to determine their resistance to threats from malware, phishing, spam and data loss.

"Security researchers discovered roughly 200 different vulnerabilities in various versions of the iOS operating system since its initial release. Of these, the vast majority were of lower severity," said Carey Nachenberg, vice president and fellow at Symantec.

"The remaining handful of vulnerabilities were of the highest severity and, when exploited, enabled an attacker to take administrator-level control of the device, granting them access to virtually all data and services."

However, Apple's overall security is still considered to be very high, largely due to the built-in encryption and the firm's stringent application vetting process.

"IOS' encryption system provides strong protection of emails and email attachments, and enables device wipe, but thus far has provided less protection against a physical device compromise by a determined attacker," Nachenberg said.

"Apple vets every single publicly available app. While this approach can almost certainly can be circumvented by a determined attacker, it has thus far proved a deterrent against malware attacks, data loss attacks, data integrity attacks and denial-of-service attacks."

It was also found that Apple's mobile operating system is immune to traditional types of computer viruses and worms, but there is currently no protection to combat social engineering attacks in the form of phishing or spam, Nachenberg warned.