Study: there’s ‘significantly’ more interest in hacking the Android OS than iOS

Rublon, a two-factor authentication firm, has released a report showing which smartphone brands attract the highest interest from hackers worldwide. 

The platform examined the number of searches for terms like “how to hack an Android phone”, “how to hack an iPhone”, “how to hack my girlfriends iPhone” to determine the interest in hacking these smartphones over the last 12 months.

Rublon analyzed the search data for each smartphone operating system and brand name to reveal which type of smartphone is most likely to receive an attempted hack. The study found that there’s “significantly” more interest in hacking the Android operating system over iOS. 

Highlights from the report

• In 2021 there were 266,400 searches relating to hacking Android.
• There is an average of 22,200 searches per month relating to hacking Android.
• In 2021 there were 19,200 searches relating to hacking iOS.
• There is an average of 1,600 searches per month relating to hacking iOS.
• There is over 13 times more interest in hacking Android over iOS.
• Interest in hacking Android increased 49% in the last year.
• Interest in hacking iOS decreased 23% in the last year.

Rublon says that interest in hacking Windows smartphones was “pretty insignificant: compared to Android and iOS which attracted to most interest from would-be hackers. Windows smartphones attracted 1,320 searches for the entire year. 

This is far less than Android or iOS attracts in a single month. In fact, interest in hacking Windows smartphones decreased 50% in the past year.

Interest in Hacking by Brand

Perhaps unsurprisingly the iPhone attracted the most attention from would-be hackers.

• There were 726,000 searches related to hacking iPhones in 2021.
• Interest in hacking the iPhone increased 22% in 2021.

Samsung smartphones attracted far less interest from hackers, receiving only 15,600 searches in the entire last year. This is about a quarter of the hacking-related searches the iPhone gets in a single month, according to Rubicon.  

The study shows there’s little interest in hacking Huawei, LG, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony smartphones. All five attract less than 5,000 searches related to hacking each year.