Google has announced that it has taken action against malicious apps by removing them from the Google Play Store. Not only the apps, Google has also removed more than 100,000 developers in 2017. The company has used machine learning to identify the bad apps with identifiers, impersonation, inappropriate content and malware.
Google has claimed in its official blog that 99 percent of the malicious apps are removed before getting installed by any smartphone user. According to Google, apps which are “copycats” are the most common apps which are a red signal for Android devices. These apps were hiding behind the official icon from the pre-existing apps.
Google has also removed apps that serve inappropriate content which Google doesn’t allow. According to Google, the inappropriate content includes pornography, extreme violence, illegal activities, and hate. Google has claimed that these apps have also been pointed out by machine learning that has flagged them as inappropriate content.
Finally, another red flag is the applications which are Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs) which can attack Android device in various ways. These apps involve phishing, fraud, and trojans which can not only cause issues for the Android devices but the user too by stealing their sensitive data like the bank account passwords.
With the launch of Google Play Protect – Malware scanning feature at the Google I/O 2017. According to the company, the annual installs of these malicious apps have been reduced to 50 percent.
Andrew Ahn, Product Manager at Google Play said “Despite the new and enhanced detection capabilities that led to a record-high takedowns of bad apps and malicious developers, we know a few still manage to evade and trick our layers of defence. We take these extremely seriously, and will continue to innovate our capabilities to better detect and protect against abusive apps and the malicious actors behind them. We are committed to make Google Play the most trusted and safe app store in the world.”
