Android is a favorite target because the software has become so popular. Android is created by Google but used by dozens of handset makers, including Samsung, HTC and Motorola. In the past year Android has become the most popular smartphone platform, ahead of Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Also, because of Google's open approach, it's relatively easy to get an app distributed in its online store.

Horse shit.

Android is a target for exactly the opposite reason that iOS is not: Because it's open. 

Dan Lyons can muddy the water all he wants and use the old standby of "the most popular OS sees all the action" but the fact of the matter is, malware has never been a problem on iOS, and "never" includes all the (considerable) time in which it outpaced Android.

There are a lot of reasons to extol the virtues of an open approach but "security" clearly isn't one of them. On the flip side of that, it's just as disingenuous to infer that Apple is somehow "only" secure because it's not as popular as Android.

It's especially ludicrous when Apple's visibility is the prime reason they're the target of activist ire when it comes to the industry's use of Chinese labor. I'd love to have a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "Apple is a high profile leader in the industry, so of course they're going to be targeted!"

Is anyone really dumb enough to think that malware distributors wouldn't make the same connection, if they could?