That’s for apps from third-party marketplaces; another 790,000 policy-breaking apps were stopped from reaching Google Play
Strengthened app safety policies, a better developer approval process, and enhancements to its machine learning detection system made the Google Play Store an even more secure place last year, according to Google’s 2019-in-review blog post this week.
“Last year, Google Play Protect also prevented more than 1.9B malware installs from non-Google Play sources,” Google Play Product Manager Andrew Ahn wrote in reference to Android’s built-in threat protection tool. The figure represents an increase from 1.6 billion malicious apps from outside of the official Android storefront that were blocked in 2018 and 2017 each.
Thanks to a new policy introduced in 2018, the Android marketplace also recorded a 98% decrease in apps accessing users’ SMS and call log data last year. The remaining 2% applied to apps that require access to these data in order to perform their core functions. (In some cases, the new policy affected legitimate services from using SMS permissions for security, privacy and safety reasons.)
The tech giant also ramped up its protection against malicious apps, praising its collaboration with partners in the Android App Alliance, of which ESET is an inaugural member. Enhanced vetting mechanisms helped Play Protect stop over 790,000 policy-violating apps from being published to Google Play. The store’s thre ..
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