Zooming in more specifically on Android, the software draws many from the Linux operating system that underlies it. Much the way Linux users are not typically given the "root," or administrator, privileges that would be required in order for a virus to do widespread harm, so Android apps are isolated in separate "silos," unable by default to read or write data or code to other applications.

With Android, users are explicitly asked for right up front, when the app is installed. On the iPhone, users can only blindly trust Apple to keep things secure for them--a trust that seems misplaced at best given the that have slipped into Apple's "walled garden" anyway.

'Most Vulnerable' of 2010

Then, too, there's the data.

Security research firm Lookout, for example, recently reported through its App Genome Project that Android applications are more secure than iPhone apps are because they're to be capable of accessing a user's contact list or retrieving their location. It also found that nearly twice as many free iPhone apps can access the user's contact data.