: How are phones so resistant to virus’s but usually computers arent?
In: Technology
In general, mobile phones are far more locked down: the OS is designed to give individual apps only the permissions needed for the app to run and those the user has explicitly granted, and should not be able to access storage outside of that assigned to the app unless given permission. Any tampering of system files or the startup process will cause the device to fail to startup
Historically, desktop operating systems are more permissive: anything that’s granted admin permission often will have nearly limitless control over all storage, and ordinary programs have read/write permission to the user’s individual profile folders without any extra permissions (although Windows has heavily changed these defaults in recent versions)
They give users way less power.
The number one security weakness is the user, because they are dumb and do stupid things.
The applications that you as a user can run are more limited in what they can do than on a computer by default.
Phone OSs were designed to be more locked down.
Firstly almost all software is installed through the official Google / Apple app store, who do vetting on the applications. It’s not like Windows where you are expected to run some random exe installer that you get from some website.
Secondly the apps themselves on mobiles are given less control of the device. The system files and application executable are kept completely separately and apps can’t touch those unless there is a serious security vulnerability found in the OS. Even basic stuff like writing to user files pops a permission request up.
On desktops (and especially Windows) because of backwards compatibility it’s usual to give apps almost full control of the system during install so a malicious program could change many system and other app files.
It’s also a side effect of when the operating systems were designed. Windows pre-dates the Internet. It was hard to publish software and distribute it (you literally went to the store and purchased a cardboard box with some disks and a paperback manual in it), so the idea of a virus just wasn’t a thing.
Compared to phone OSes (iOS and android) which were designed from the ground app for Internet connectivity and the dangers that come with potentially malicious/abusive software running on your device.
They aren’t, the main thing is that on phones most people only download applications through the play store or app store, or some other brands pre downloaded applications like Galaxy Store for Samsung, on computers we usually download directly from the website, this makes it easier to accidentally download malware
Also, although I’m.not 100% sure, computers are more likely to be directly connected to important servers that might have sensitive information or control important things, this makes them a more design target, and to get money from people you dont need viruses, its easily with phishing attacks or simple social engineering
Think of a phone os as a single story house. It’s only got a few rooms so you can’t do much but it also means that you can look out for burglars easier since there aren’t many entry points and you can patrol the place better.
Think of a computer os as a mansion. It’s got many rooms so you can do a lot of things but it also means more entry points that you can’t constantly monitor and furthermore, burglars are more likely to target mansions because there are more valuable things to steal.
Companies have a lot more control over how the phones are used and what goes into them. Generally speaking while it’s not impossible to install programs from outside the proprietary app stores most people don’t do that, and all they install on their phones come from app stores that try to ensure malware isn’t present on apps put on their platform. The way the OS in phones works is also very different, only allowing the bare minimum of access to apps to enable them to function and making it as clear and obvious as possible to the users as to what permissions these apps have. Of course that’s not to say that there aren’t many very careless users who just always give any permission any app asks for, or that there aren’t any less than honest apps on app stores. However most of those simply seek to get as much data from users as possible rather than to outright “hack” your device and steal data they’re not supposed to have. Most users unwittingly and carelessly agree to give access to all their data.
For example photo editing apps are very popular because everyone wants to look like a Kardashian. Obviously using this app requires the user to give access to their photos. What they don’t realise is that a lot of those apps save their photos on their servers. Basically a lot of people have their intimate moments saved on random servers all over the world and they don’t even realize it.
They’re not. You, the user, simply don’t have such easy access to malicious software on your phone as you do your computer.
If you started installing apps outside the app store/Google Play/etc, especially if you were downloading them from shady sources, you could very easily infect your phone with malware.
Imagine you have two restaurants in town: one is extremely diligent about food safety and where they source their ingredients, the other is super lax about such things.
Would it be a mystery why significantly more people get sick eating at the second restaurant? No, that restaurant will let people eat anything. If you want a sketchy cut of steak at the first restaurant you’ve got to bring it from home, sneak in the side door, and tell the cook “Just cook it for me and I’ll sign this waiver that says I accept the risk of me getting sick.”
Phones generally don’t run windows, and people generally don’t give root rights to applications on phones.
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