Google announced that it has refused to publish 2.28 million apps on the Play Store in 2023, compared to 1.43 million apps banned from the App Store in 2022. The company also said it has banned 333,000 accounts from potentially malicious developers.
In an annual report, Google said improvements and new measures taken to keep Google Play users safe as the threat landscape evolved made it more difficult for malicious apps to be released in 2023.
The company added that the apps were banned from publishing on Google Play for violating its policies. The accounts were banned for “violations such as confirmed malware and severe and repeated policy violations.”
“Additionally, nearly 200,000 app submissions were rejected or fixed to ensure proper use of sensitive permissions such as background location or SMS access. To help protect user privacy at scale, we have partnered with SDK providers to limit access and sharing of sensitive data, improving the privacy of more than 31 SDKs impacting more than 790,000 applications,” the company said in a blog post.
Google partners with Microsoft, Meta for Android ecosystem security
Google announced its partnership with Microsoft and Meta as steering committee members of the recently restructured App Defense Alliance (ADA) to support industry-wide adoption of application security best practices and guidelines, as well as as countermeasures against emerging security risks.
Last year, the company enhanced Google Play Protect’s security capabilities by launching real-time, code-level scanning to combat new malicious apps.
This feature is specifically aimed at protecting Android devices from malicious apps downloaded outside of the Google Play Store.
“This new feature has already detected more than 5 million new non-game malicious apps, helping to protect Android users around the world,” Google claimed.
In an annual report, Google said improvements and new measures taken to keep Google Play users safe as the threat landscape evolved made it more difficult for malicious apps to be released in 2023.
The company added that the apps were banned from publishing on Google Play for violating its policies. The accounts were banned for “violations such as confirmed malware and severe and repeated policy violations.”
“Additionally, nearly 200,000 app submissions were rejected or fixed to ensure proper use of sensitive permissions such as background location or SMS access. To help protect user privacy at scale, we have partnered with SDK providers to limit access and sharing of sensitive data, improving the privacy of more than 31 SDKs impacting more than 790,000 applications,” the company said in a blog post.
Google partners with Microsoft, Meta for Android ecosystem security
Google announced its partnership with Microsoft and Meta as steering committee members of the recently restructured App Defense Alliance (ADA) to support industry-wide adoption of application security best practices and guidelines, as well as as countermeasures against emerging security risks.
Last year, the company enhanced Google Play Protect’s security capabilities by launching real-time, code-level scanning to combat new malicious apps.
This feature is specifically aimed at protecting Android devices from malicious apps downloaded outside of the Google Play Store.
Develop
“This new feature has already detected more than 5 million new non-game malicious apps, helping to protect Android users around the world,” Google claimed.
