Edward Snowden on the iPhone monoculture


Snowden did an interview on Motherboard's CYBER podcast. The discussion was wide-ranging and included a discussion on current mobile privacy and security. Snowden made the point that the iPhone strength of fast security patching and standardized hardware creates a monoculture of hardware, software, and operating systems. On a device basis, iOS is generally much more secure than Android, but an exploit for iOS can have wide-ranging usage. Android users likely need to be targeted to their specific device fingerprint.

In the long run, iPhone users should be better off as vulnerabilities should have limited windows. iOS gets regular patches while Android devices often go unpatched or simply no longer supported.

Snowden suggested Apple needs to step up on furthering hardening its system and was hopeful iOS 13 would offer solutions.

The podcast can be found on iTunes or the Motherboard site.