Security Experts Fear Apple App Store Lawsuit Could Lead To Malicious Rogue iOS Apps

The Apple App Store is regarded as being more a lot more secure than Google Play, but it's not perfect. An app was discovered last month that had bypassed Apple's security and was spying on users. Now, cybersecurity experts are worried that more unsecure apps might be sold to Apple customers after a Supreme Court ruling this week that will allow iPhone users to proceed with a class-action suit against Apple. The class-action alleges Apple's monopoly on the downloading of apps from the App Store drove prices up.

While the Supreme Court approved the suit, the actual suit does have to go back and work its way through the lower courts. The case has the potential to force Apple to open its walled garden and allow the downloading of third-party apps to iPhones. The fear that experts have is that this could lead to higher rates of malware infections on iOS devices as apps on third-party stores might not be checked for threats as Apple typically does.

The experts point to Android as they see these issues on Android devices already as users can download apps from any app platform. As much as users might hate Apple's tight control over the App Store, it has undoubtedly minimalized the amount of malware that an iOS user can download.

Renaud Deraison, co-founder and CTO of cyber exposure firm Tenable, says that giving iOS users the ability to download apps from third-party app stores means the "likelihood of malware-ridden apps would be high." Deraison also added, "that level of autonomy is definitely not in the customers' best interest."

Developers of Apps for iOS devices are upset that Apple charges a fee of 30% of their profits to put their paid apps on the App Store and since iOS users can't download content anywhere else, the developers have no alternative. The downsides for security are clear; the vast majority of Android malware comes from third-party app stores.