Intel executives declined to comment on Dai Zovi's remarks, saying any discussion of a Moorestown-based iPhone is purely hypothetical. In addition, they said Intel's policy is to decline comment on other companies' products.

MacOS X is seen as generally safer than Windows, because the small market share of MacOS X means most malware writers and hackers choose to focus their efforts on Windows instead. But that could change as iPhone sales boost the number of MacOS X users.

"The iPhone is another OS X platform and whereas now the market share for OS X is definitely under 10 percent on desktops, on smart phones they recently sold more phones than RIM," Dai Zovi said, referring to the maker of the BlackBerry line of handheld devices.

The iPhone runs a slimmed-down version of MacOS X, the operating system used in Apple's desktop and laptop computers. As a result, some of the security features that are included in the desktop version of MacOS X are not included in the phone version.

"The iPhone is significantly less secure than the desktop version of OS X," Dai Zovi said.