Google blocked 2 million malicious apps from the Play Store in 2023

Google reveals that it blocked more than 2 million apps and banned more than 300,000 accounts from the Play Store in 2023 for violations of community policies

Google revealed, in a post on the company’s blog, that it prevented 2.28 million applications from reaching the Play Store in 2023 for violating community policies. Additionally, 333,000 malicious accounts were identified and banned from the platform for having malware or recurring violations.

The company also rejected or corrected 200,000 app submissions during this period for misusing sensitive permissions such as SMS access and background location.

Play Store Security

The numbers were released, this Monday (29), by Google in a publication about the company’s efforts to maintain the security of the Play Store.

According to the company, the work of removing and banning malicious apps and accounts requires constant updating of control and surveillance tools in the face of a threat scenario that is always evolving.

“We’ve made recent improvements and introduced new measures to continue to keep Google Play users safe, with investment in new security features, updated community policies, and advanced machine learning and app review processes,” says Big Tech.

The company has four basic principles that guide security work on the Play Store, whether for the end public or developers. These principles are brought together in the English acronym “SAFE”, which defines:

• Safeguard users;
• Advocate for the protection of developers;
• Foster responsible innovation;
• Evolve the platform’s defense mechanisms.

In updating its Play Store policies, Google said it has established more requirements and tests for new developers before publishing their solutions in the app store. Additionally, apps that allow account creation now need to provide an option to delete data.

Security outside the Play Store

In addition to the protection mechanisms in the Play Store, Google revealed that it has increased security for people who install applications outside the store. The company has expanded Google Play Protect’s security features with real-time scanning at the code level to combat malicious apps.

“Our security protections and machine learning algorithms learn from every app submitted to Google for review, and we check thousands of signals and compare app behavior. This new feature has already detected more than 5 million new malicious apps outside of the Play Store” , said the company.

To learn more about Play Store security, see why there are still viruses in the app store.

Trending on Canaltech: