According to Google’s annual report on “bad apps,” the company banned 173,000 developer accounts last year to prevent malware operations and fraud rings from infecting Android users’ devices with malicious apps.
Additionally, Google stopped almost 1.5 million apps linked to various policy violations from reaching the Google Play Store. The Google Play Commerce security team also prevented fraudulent and abusive transactions that could have resulted in over $2 billion in losses.
Source: Google Report 2023
Take by Google
Google also imposed new requirements for developers wishing to join the Play Store ecosystem, including phone and email identity verification. As a result, the number of accounts used to disseminate apps violating Google Play policies decreased.
The company collaborated with software development kit (SDK) providers to restrict access to sensitive data and prevent its sharing. This move led to more than one million apps in the official Android store having better privacy protection.
“In 2022, we prevented 1.43 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in part due to new and improved security features and policy enhancements — in combination with our continuous investments in machine learning systems and app review processes.”
Started years ago…
Over the past three years, Google’s efforts to strengthen Android platform protections and policies prevented much inclusion into the Google Play Store from requesting and accessing sensitive permissions.
Throughout 2021, Google blocked 1.2 million policy-violating apps, banned 190,000 accounts related to malicious and spammy developers, and shut down about 500,000 inactive or abandoned developer accounts.
“We continue to enhance our machine learning and review processes, and in 2021 we blocked 1.2 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play, preventing billions of harmful installations. We also continued our efforts to combat malicious and spammy developers, banning 190k bad accounts in 2021. We closed around 500k developer accounts that are inactive or abandoned.” Google Security Policy 2021.
Comparing the results
One year ago, Google Play was updated to include a data safety section outlining how apps collect, share, and safeguard users’ data.
“In 2022, the Google Play Store was the first commercial app store to recognize and display a badge for any app that has completed an independent security review through App Defense Alliance’s Mobile App Security Assessment (MASA).”
More recently, in February 2023, Google announced that Android 14, the next major version of the world’s most popular mobile operating system, would prevent malware from abusing sensitive permissions by targeting older API levels.
Reflecting on this
We can not deny that Google is committed to providing the best experience to users, whether it is about the interface, availability, or security. 2023 is going to bring a lot of constructive changes for the users and developers. Play Integrity API, automated integrity protection, SDK index, policy bytes, advanced Sandbox efforts, and whatnot.
With preventive measures taking place with the providers, the next step is to provide safety to yourself. Being secure is the trait we must possess as a family and build an adaptive, secure ecosystem.
PureVPN
May 2, 2023
1 year ago
