The chairman of the world's largest provider of security software for corporate servers made a statement that Android-based smartphones are more vulnerable to cyber attacks than the iPhones. The statement comes less a week after Trend Micro released its Mobile Security app for Android phones.

"Android is open source, which means the hacker can also understand the underlying architecture and source code,"" Chairman Steve Chang told Bloomberg Businessweek.

"We have to give credit to Apple, because they are very careful about it," he added. "It's impossible for certain types of viruses"to operate on the iPhone."

Google didn't disprove Chang's claim in its response to Bloomberg. "On all computing devices, users necessarily entrust at least some of their information to the developer of the application they're using," it said in an email. "Android has taken steps to inform users of this trust relationship and to limit the amount of trust a user must grant to any given application developer."

Among other things the iPhone marketplace is regulated by Apple itself and so users almost need not be too cautious when choosing applications while there is no one who would check the apps before they come to the Android software distribution place.