A Comparative Study on Smartphone Operating System Security Features

This report provides a comparative analysis of the security features of various smartphone operating systems. It examines the Android operating system, highlighting its open-source nature, security updates, and features like the Linux security level and application sandboxing. The report then delves into the iOS operating system, emphasizing its closed ecosystem, hardware and software security integration, and features like app sandboxing and hardware-level security components. The report also briefly discusses Ubuntu Touch, noting its challenges. The study concludes that iOS offers the best security due to its closed ecosystem. The report also touches upon the security features of the Windows operating system, including BitLocker Drive Encryption and the importance of software updates. The report references several research papers to support its findings.

Running head: SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEM
SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEM
Name of the Student;
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Discussion......................................................................................................................3
Android operating system:.............................................................................................3
ios operating system:......................................................................................................4
Ubuntu Touch:...............................................................................................................4
Decision regarding the operating system with best security system:.............................5
Windows operating system:...........................................................................................5
Conclusion......................................................................................................................6

SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction
Operating system in smartphone plays an important role in maintaining the security of
the smartphone (Wessel et al. 2015). There are various operating systems for smartphones
available in the market. The comparative discussion will indicate the level of security
involved in the system.
Discussion
Various available smartphone operating systems are android operating system,
blackberry operating system, Firefox operating system, Ubuntu Touch, windows operating
system, ios. Apart from that there are other open source operating systems which are used for
different smartphones (Das and Khan 2016). Among the smartphone operating systems the
most popular operating system is android operating system. This operating system is used
widely. The discussion regarding the security level of the different operating system has been
discussed following:
Android operating system:
Android mobile operating system is developed by Google. It is an open and free
software stack that includes system, middleware and key application systems necessary for
the mobile devices. The security update for the system is provided by the developer (Joshi
and Parekh 2016). The update of the software adds extra security patch those are capable of
preventing the sudden attacks in the smartphones. Apart from that with each update the
further technical enhancements are done.
There are various features for the security system for android operating system.
Security of Linux is used for the android operating system level. Secured inter process
communication is used for the communication between the two different application running

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simultaneously (Das and Khan 2016). Apart from that the application sandbox isolates two
different apps from each other to protect the apps in the system from the malicious apps.
ios operating system:
ios operating system is developed by Apple and is used for iphone devices. The main
characteristic of ios is that this operating system does not give license to the third party
hardware.
The security system of ios is unique and it protects the hardware as well as the
software of the system. The security system of Apple ios can be divided into two parts-
hardware part and software part. In the software block app sandbox is used for the protection
of the data. Apart from that the user’s partition is also encrypted in the system. The OS
partition and file system both are separated in the software.
In the hardware and firmware section kernel, crypto engine and device keys are
separated in different sections (Bala, Sharma and Kaur 2015). In the kernel there are two
separate sections-secure enclave and secured elements. Apart from that the ios uses a process
called system software authorization where the vulnerabilities can be detected and fixed in
the newer version of the software.
Ubuntu Touch:
Ubuntu Touch is a mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system. The operating
system is developed by the Canonical Ltd. The operating system is developed for the touch
screen mobiles and tablets.
However, use of Ubuntu Touch was not successful. Initially, the operating system was
functional enough, but there are problems of bugs and the security of the open source
operating system have made this operating system less used by the users and the smartphone
developing companies.

SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEM
Decision regarding the operating system with best security system:
The comparative study has been done on the different smartphone operating systems.
There are other smartphone operating system those are available in the market but not widely
used. From the discussion, it can be said that the best security system for operating system is
offered by ios developed by Apple (De Andrade et al.2015). The main advantage of this
operating system is that it does not provide service to the third party vendor so there is a less
chance of security breaches. Apart from that this security system is exclusively works for the
devices developed by Apple.
Android is used widely and is more popular than apple. However, there are many
third party vendors those are licensed to use the different version of android for their own
devices. So, there is a chances for the breaching of the security.
Windows operating system:
Windows operating system is used in Microsoft’s mobile operating system. The
smartphones which uses the windows operating system can be with or without touch screen.
Windows operating system uses Windows CE 5.2 kernel.
Windows operating system uses Bit locker Drive Encryption in order to protect the
file system. The basic structure of the windows 7 operating system is similar to the android
and other types of smartphone operating system. However, some of the special encryption
feature have made this operating system advanced in the security.
In order to protect the smartphones from the cybercrime and cyber-attacks, the users
of the smartphones are needed to update their software in a periodic order. The update will
help to install the latest security patches in the systems those will be helpful for the
prevention of the cybercrime.

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Conclusion
The discussion is regarding the operating system of different smartphones. In this
context the security systems and functionalities of different smartphones has been discussed.
It can be concluded from above discussion that every smartphone operating system is
concerned about security however, the security of ios is more advanced than rest of the
smartphone operating system.

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References
Bala, K., Sharma, S. and Kaur, G., 2015. A study on smartphone based operating
system. International Journal of Computer Applications, 121(1).
Das, A. and Khan, H.U., 2016. Security behaviors of smartphone users. Information &
Computer Security, 24(1), pp.116-134.
De Andrade, P.R., Albuquerque, A.B., Frota, O.F., Silveira, R.V. and da Silva, F.A., 2015.
Cross platform app: a comparative study. arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.03511.
Divya, K. and Kumar, V.K., 2016. Comparative analysis of smart phone operating systems
android, apple ios and windows. International Journal of Scientific Engineering and
Applied Science (IJSEAS), 2(2), pp.432-439.
Joshi, J. and Parekh, C., 2016, April. Android smartphone vulnerabilities: a survey. In 2016
International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication, & Automation
(ICACCA)(Spring) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Wessel, S., Huber, M., Stumpf, F. and Eckert, C., 2015. Improving mobile device security
with operating system-level virtualization. Computers & Security, 52, pp.207-220.