new iOS user from android, will i be protected?

[ParanoiaBoy]

hello! i've never owned an iphone before (android only) and now i'm going to buy a new iphone 8.

i literally know 0 about how apple systems work in general, and how they manage security in particular. yes, like the common people say, apple is more "safer" from viruses in general because it is built differently from windows.

i'm not tech savvy, and i'd like to know, when i'll get my new iphone, if i'll be as protected as i am currently on android with my malwarebytes premium (since, for example, mbam app exists on both google play/apple store, but i even use kaspersky which doesnt exist on apple store); or is there anything on ios that mbam cannot protect me from? anything i should be careful of?   also, last but not least, will my mbam android subscription be valid for ios as well? (once i'll unistall it from my current android, of course)

thanks

[ParanoiaBoy]

more safer*

forgive me for my typos please

[alvarnell]

Please make sure you have read this pinned article: 

which should answer most of your questions. Apple iOS is orders of magnitude more secure than Android, so there is very little left over to protect you from. You only get Call blocking, Web Protection and Ad Blocking, but that's all you should ever need.

I doubt there is any way to use your android license for premium purchases since all in-app purchases must be through Apple's App Store.

[ParanoiaBoy]

yeah, i gave it a read, however i didn't clarify much.

i mean, there is written "mbam cannot scan your ios for malwares": does that mean that a malware can get inside and i can't find it?

 

 

[alvarnell]

That's not what it means, but iOS has so far managed to keep malware from getting inside (unless you jailbreak it), so there's really nothing to look for.

[treed]

Technically speaking, there's no such thing as an impenetrable system. iOS devices are very hard to infect, but it can happen. Jailbreaking and then downloading something malicious is one way, targeted attacks that install malware through a vulnerability is another.

Fortunately, very few people are currently affected by those kinds of things, and it's extremely unlikely you'll ever have to worry about actual malware on iOS. Unfortunately, if it happens, no app can scan for or remove the malware, because Apple doesn't give that level of access on iOS devices.

If you get some shady app from the App Store on your iOS device, that later turns out to have been siphoning off personal data that you've given it access to (like your location or contacts), then you can simply delete the app. However, if you have reason to believe that your iOS device has been infected with actual malware (which I'll repeat is highly unlikely), the only option is to wipe the device and set it up as a new device, without restoring backups.

[ParanoiaBoy]

perfectly clear. thanks. so basically each app can only steal the data i've given access to.

would you forgive me if i may ask you about how iOS works with other kinds of threats? such as when i browse on internet from my iphone, if i get on a malicious website, could it harm me the same way it would on android? such as if i'm on an unsafe wi-fi, could someone get into my phone? i don't know how things like these would turn out with iOS, since i've never owned one.

however i'll keep using malwarebytes premium, never enough safety; and i'm not one of those that need to jailbreak their phone.

thank you

 

[treed]

I always hesitate to say that something can't happen... but, on iOS, it's very difficult to infect the device with malware just by visiting a website. Doing that requires some kind of vulnerability that is unknown to Apple, or a vulnerability that is known and fixed but you're running an old version of iOS. Such vulnerabilities in iOS sell for $1 million or more on the black market, so this doesn't happen much. But, though unlikely, it can happen. The best example is Pegasus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

As for unsafe wifi, the problem you face there is not to your phone, but your data. An untrustworthy wifi network can perform a man-in-the-middle attack to do lots of things... such as directing you to a phishing page when you try to log in to a sensitive site. Say, for example, if you try to log in to the Bank of America website to access your account, but the network actually redirects you to a lookalike Bank of America site designed to steal your password. Either use cellular data instead of joining an untrusted wifi network, or use a trustworthy VPN to encrypt your traffic while connected to an untrusted wifi network. Note that free VPNs are seldom appropriately trustworthy.

[avensis]

In my opinion there is not a system to secure 100% always there are some flaws somewhere.