Google continues to increase methods in policing its own app platform by cracking down on malicious app installations.
My Broadband reports that their new policies have just recently seen a huge decline in the number of Play Store apps that abuse permissions to access users’ personal information.
Google has shared its efforts to fight bad apps and malware developers in a recent blog post. It states that there has been a 98% decrease in apps that unnecessarily receive access to the call and SMS log data of users.
“The remaining 2% are comprised of apps that require SMS and call log data to perform their core function,” Google said, confirming that it has effectively removed all apps that maliciously effect Call and SMS logs.
In 2018, Google implemented a new policy for apps running on its Android OS, letting only those apps that are the user’s selected call or texting apps access call and SMS information. The policy led to new collaborations between developers and Google themselves.
This new decline of malicious software on their platform is attributed to these collaborations.
Google has also refreshed its Play Protect Programme which, according to Google, “scans over 100-billion apps every day, providing users with information about potential security issues and actions they can take to keep their devices safe and secure”.
It also indicates that Google Play Protect even prevented malware from installing in non-Google Play sources, a total of 1.9-billion installs.
A More Family-Friendly Google App Store:
With their amendments to SMS and call log permissions, in 2019 Google released another policy aimed at protecting families better online.
This particular policy makes app developers declare what their target audience is and carefully consider whether the content in their apps, like certain adverts, are aimed at children, and whether or not this is appropriate.
Google says it continues to strive to maintain the “world’s safest and most helpful app platform”.
Edited by Luis Monzon
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