More Than 2.3 Million Android App Submissions Blocked at the Google Play Store in 2024

Android maker Google just shared that it blocked over 2.3 million Android app submissions at the Play Store last year. The reason was cited as being a violation of a host of its policies which made it very risky for people to use.

Additionally, 158k developer accounts were banned from trying to publish harmful platforms such as malware and spyware across the official app store on Android. Meanwhile. Google was seen blocking 2,280,000 risky platforms in 2023 and 1,500,000 platforms in the year before. This just goes to show the major increase in blocked app submissions.

The large number of blocks witnessed last year had to do with the arrival of AI and its plaguing human reviews. In most cases, that was the major reason for violations. Today, the company says more than 92% of all reviews for dangerous apps were made using AI.

For this reason, Google was left with no choice but to make the quick and sweeping decision to stop dangerous apps from being up for grabs on Google Play. This enabled the company to stop many bad apps from reaching others that rely heavily on the Play Store. It hopes to continue protecting users from dangerous apps before causing serious damage.

Other than the blocks and rejections outlined, the search engine giant shared more on how it stopped 1.3M apps from receiving excessive permission. That would give them unnecessary access to material deemed sensitive.

Meanwhile, Google Play Protect kept on getting major upgrades last year to better its protection for apps in real-time. This was aligned with the growing trend in scams and frauds and even those apps seen outside its Play Store premises.

Today, the company’s default protection suite can scan more than 200B apps daily. It could perform code-level analysis on a live basis. Then in 2024, the scans could highlight more than 13M new malware platforms sourced externally from Google Play.

App developers also get more advanced tools to better apps and make them more secure from dangerous SDKs with the company raising its own figure to 80 trusted SDKs now. Still, it’s never enough to overcome the more advanced security loopholes that keep arising thanks to more sophisticated techniques employed by cybercriminals.

Google keeps reminding users to stay vigilant, rely on trusted publishers, and also limit the figures for installed platforms to the bare minimum or as necessary. Routine scrutiny and analysis of any risky app permissions is similarly important as is making sure Play Protect keeps running.


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