- Google says it blocked 2.36 million malicious Androvery applications of the Play Store in 2024
- Hundreds of thousands of developer accounts have also been prohibited
- Google says that AI help was behind it blocking more applications than in previous years
Google says that it blocked 2.36 million application bids made to the Play Store in 2024 because they violated its policies and as such a potential risk of cybersecurity.
In a Google Security blog article, the company described how, in addition to blocked applications, it has also prohibited 158,000 developer accounts that have tried to push malware and spy software to the application frame of reference.
By comparing these figures with 2023 and 2022, Google has shown an increase in the number of blocked applications and application developer accounts. The previous year, it blocked 2.28 million and in 2022 – 1.5 million. As for the developers, it blocked 333,000 and 173,000 respectively.
With a little help from my AI
Detailing how he was able to obtain these results, Google said he had the help of artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, in 92% of the positive results, human examiners were helped by AI.
“Today, more than 92% of our human advice for harmful applications are assisted by AI, which allows us to take faster and more precise measures to prevent harmful applications from becoming available on Google Play”, said the company.
“This allowed us to prevent more bad applications than ever from reaching users via the Play Store, protecting users from harmful or malicious applications before we can cause damage.”
Malventy applications can be more easily identified by the authorizations they require. Too demanding applications are generally a red flag, and last year, Google prevented 1.3 million applications from obtaining excessive authorizations.
Most malicious Android applications resident on third-party websites or are distributed via cat messages, emails, forums, etc. While Google usually does an excellent job to keep its repository of clean applications, a small number of dangerous applications exceed protections from time to time.
This is why, in addition to ensuring that applications are covered by Google’s Play Protect system, it is always advisable to check the number of downloads and read critics, before downloading applications.
