Google Bans 2.3 Million Dangerous Apps from Play Store – How AI Protects You from Threats

 

Google, in 2024, banned over 2.3 million potentially dangerous Android apps from the Google Play Store, primarily for policy violations that could have endangered Android users. In a blog post, Google added that it also banned more than 158,000 bad developer accounts that attempted to publish harmful apps last year. 

Google also stopped 1.3 million apps from gaining undue or unreasonable access to private user information in 2024, it added in the post.

AI-Powered Threat Detection On Google Play

To block apps and enhance its systems’ capacity, the company utilised artificial intelligence-powered threat detection. AI reportedly helped human reviewers detect malware and spyware in 92% of the violating cases, increasing speed and accuracy of reviews.

“Today, over 92% of our human reviews for harmful apps are AI-assisted, allowing us to take quicker and more accurate action to help prevent harmful apps from becoming available on Google Play,” Google said in the post. 

It added that more than 91% of apps installed on the Google Play Store now utilise the most recent security features of Android 13 or later thanks to collaboration with developers

Play Protect Updates Help Detect Harmful Apps Better

Notably, Google made some significant updates to its free antivirus app Play Protect last year, which may have helped the company identify harmful apps more accurately. All of the top Android phones come with the software preinstalled, and it checks for malware in both installed apps and any new ones users download. Google also released a significant security update for Android phones in late October that allowed users to better manage app access to images and videos.

Google claims that every day, Play Protect scans over 200 billion apps. It also does real-time code-level scanning on new apps to fight hidden and emerging threats like polymorphic malware. Play Protect’s real-time scanning detected over 13 million new harmful apps from sources other than Google Play in 2024.

It added that in 2024, 10 million devices had been protected from more than 36 million dangerous installation attempts, including more than 200,000 distinct apps, because of Google Play Protect’s improved fraud prevention measures.

Google’s Play Integrity API helps developers guard against misuse such as fraud, bots, cheating, and data theft by allowing them to determine whether their apps have been altered or are operating in potentially compromised environments. On average, apps with Play integrity features received 80% fewer usages from unreliable and unconfirmed sources.