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"Update: Google provided Mashable with a transcript of Sundar Pichai\u2019s comments regarding security on Android. We\u2019ve updated the story to clarify what was said.\nAndroid is a big target for mobile malware, but it's a consequence of its popularity and far-reaching user base, not its openness, said Sundar Pichai, Google\u2019s head of Android, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Thursday.\nA reporter asked the Google executive about whether Android, being an open platform, was less secure than iOS.\nSee also: 10 Free Android Apps You'll Use Every Day\nPichai replied that he believes Android\u2019s openness ensures that is, in fact, more secure than other platforms, according to a transcript of the interview provided by Google:\nSorry, the premise of the question is because Android is open, it has more security issues? Respectfully, I'm not sure that's a correct premise of the question. Open platforms historically undergo a lot of scrutiny, but there are a lot of advantages to having an open source platform from a security standpoint. I would argue that it's the best way for a platform to be secure, because every researcher in the world can inspect it, every developer in the world can inspect it, and I think that contributes a lot to Android security. \nHe went on to say that while Android emphasizes openness, it was designed to be secure. He said security vulnerabilities that do exist within Android stem from fragmentation on the manufacturer side, pointing to device manufacturers who ship handsets running older, less secure versions of the operating system.\n\nAndroid was built to be very, very secure. The thing that you're seeing is because Android is an open platform, many people can ship Android in many different ways and so there are some partners when they ship devices, they have an older version of Android. And sure you can have a security vulnerability there, but that doesn't mean Android isn't secure.\nWe go to great lengths \u2014 the depth of work in Android to make it secure; the depth of work done by Google Play... Google Play automatically scans and verifies thousands of applications for malware. We track data on this. It's state of the art in terms of what we do. What you see across the ecosystem... people will ship good phones and keep them updated... You will have some phones that will not be updated. That's where we see issues. Not Android at a fundamental level.\n\nPichai did acknowledge the presence of malware and that Android is the primary target of malware on mobile. But, he said, that is because Android has more users than any other platform and that Android users are not \u201Cfundamentally compromised.\"\nWhen you say numbers like 90% of malware is targeting Android, you know, I hate to point out that if you're a smart business person running this malware company, that's what you should do. It's the wrong way to look at the lens. Obviously, you will always see more malware targeting Android because Android is used more than any smartphone platform by a pretty substantial difference.\nPichai also spoke about Google's relationship with Samsung, Nokia's X line of handsets, the upcoming Galaxy S6 and hinted at a potential launch date for the Nexus 6 (second half of 2014).\nCorrection: The original version of this story took Pichai's comments from a report on a French Android blog, FrAndroid, and not Google's transcript. Since that site no longer stands by those comments, we have corrected the account to reflect what was said in the Google transcript. Mashable regrets any errors made.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/02/27/google-sundar-pichai-android/>