Google blocked 2.36 million risky Android apps from Play Store in 2024

Google blocked 2.3 million Android app submissions to the Play Store in 2024 due to violations of its policies that made them potentially risky for users.

In addition, 158,000 developer accounts were banned for attempting to publish harmful apps like malware and spyware on Android's official app store.

In comparison, Google blocked 2,280,000 risky apps in 2023 and 1,500,000 apps in 2022, while the figures for blocked Play developer accounts were 333,000 and 173,000, respectively.

The larger number of blocked apps in 2024 is partly attributed to AI assisting human reviews, which was used in 92% of the violating cases.

"Today, over 92% of our human reviews for harmful apps are AI-assisted, allowing us to take quicker and more accurate action to help prevent harmful apps from becoming available on Google Play," explained Google.

"That's enabled us to stop more bad apps than ever from reaching users through the Play Store, protecting users from harmful or malicious apps before they can cause any damage."

Apart from rejections and blocks, Google reports that it has also prevented 1.3 million apps from getting excessive permissions that would have granted them unnecessary access to sensitive user data.

Google Play Protect, Android's built-in security system, received significant upgrades in 2024 to enhance real-time protection against malicious apps, scams, and fraud, even for apps installed outside the Play Store.

The tech giant says Android's default protection suite scanned over 200 billion apps daily, performing live code-level analysis. During 2024, these scans identified over 13 million new malware apps sourced from outside Google Play.

App developers were also given new tools to better secure their apps from malicious SDKs and abuse, with the Google Play SDK index expanding greatly last year to add another 80 trusted SDKs.

Moreover, increased adoption of the Play Integrity API saw an 80% reduction in abuse from untrusted sources. In comparison, 91% of app installs now use security and privacy protection features available in Android 13 and later.

Play Protect warns of risky app
Source: Google

Google's untrusted APK installation blocking system, first launched as a pilot in Singapore in February 2024, has now been expanded to Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Its 2024 success is reflected in stopping 36 million installation attempts of 200,000 unique apps from nesting in 10 million Android devices.

As Google strengthens Android protections yearly, gaps in security remain, and cybercriminals employ new, more advanced methods to bypass automated scanners.

Users must remain vigilant, only trust reputable publishers, keep the number of installed apps at the minimum necessary, scrutinize and revoke risky app permissions, and ensure Play Protect is running at all times.