Google published a report on Android security Tuesday, announcing that more than 700,000 apps were removed from Google Play for violating marketplace policies.
In a blog post titled “How we fought bad apps and malicious developers in 2017,” Google described efforts made covering the last 12 months to keep users safe.
“Last year we’ve more than halved the probability of a user installing a bad app, protecting people and their devices from harm’s way, and making Google Play a more challenging place for those who seek to abuse the app ecosystem for their own gain,” wrote Andrew Ahn, product manager at Google Play, in a blog post Tuesday.
It is described that 99 percent of apps with “abusive contents” were singled out and discarded before a user could install them, Google said. Also, over 100,000 “bad developers” were removed from the Google marketplace.
Several examples of bad apps were enumerated and removed, and they include copycats, which try to deceive users by disguising as famous apps. Other were also flagged for content, including pornography, extreme violence, hate, and illegal activities.
Enjoy the report here.
Pedro Tavares is a professional in the field of information security working as an Ethical Hacker/Pentester, Malware Researcher and also a Security Evangelist. He is also a founding member at CSIRT.UBI and Editor-in-Chief of the security computer blog seguranca-informatica.pt.
In recent years he has invested in the field of information security, exploring and analyzing a wide range of topics, such as pentesting (Kali Linux), malware, exploitation, hacking, IoT and security in Active Directory networks. He is also Freelance Writer (Infosec. Resources Institute and Cyber Defense Magazine) and developer of the 0xSI_f33d – a feed that compiles phishing and malware campaigns targeting Portuguese citizens.
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