Over 2 million risky Android apps were blocked from the Play Store last year

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Google says it blocked 2.36 million malicious Android apps from the Play Store in 2024
Hundreds of thousands of developer accounts were banned, too
Google says AI help was behind it blocking more apps than in previous years

Google says it blocked 2.36 million app submissions made to the Play Store in 2024 because they were in violation of its policies and as such a potential cybersecurity risk.

In a Google Security blog post, the company outlined how, besides the blocked apps, it also banned 158,000 developer accounts which tried to push malware and spyware to the app repository.

Comparing these figures with 2023 and 2022, Google showed an increase in the number of blocked apps and app developer accounts. The year before, it blocked 2.28 million, and in 2022 - 1.5 million. As for developers, it blocked 333,000 and 173,000 respectively.

With a little help from my AI

Detailing how it was able to achieve these results, Google said it got help from Artificial Intelligence (AI). In fact, in 92% of positive results, human reviewers were assisted by AI.

"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," the company said.

"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."

Malicious apps can be most easily identified by the permissions they request. Overly demanding apps are usually a red flag, and last year, Google blocked 1.3 million apps from getting excessive permissions.

Most malicious Android apps reside on third-party websites, or are distributed via chat messages, email, forums, and such. While Google generally does a great job at keeping its app repository clean, a small number of dangerous apps make it past the protections from time to time.

That is why, besides making sure apps are covered by Google’s Play Protect system, it is always advised to check the number of downloads, and read the reviews, before downloading any apps.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.