Sunday, October 18, 2026

Google Play Protect Blocks More than 1.9B Malicious app Installs in 2019

Google continues to enhance the safety of Google Play with continuous improvements, enhancements, and teams to fight against malicious apps and developers.

Google Play Protect is built-in malware protection for Android, it was introduced in the year 2017, aiming to detect malicious apps in the Google Play and off of user’s devices.

According to Android Security & Privacy report 2018, Google blocks more than 3.2 billion malicious apps installation.

Starting from October 2018, Google announced a new policy update to limit the apps unnecessarily accessing sensitive information such as SMS and Call Log data.

Google Play Protect scans over 100B apps

Google Play protects scans more than 100B apps every day and alerts the users about the security measures and the steps that need to be taken.

It also notified you if you have installed new or rarely installed apps in the ecosystem when the play protects is enabled it shows the following warning when the malicious app launched. The warning also provides details about what to do next.

Play protect Warning

According to the 2019 report, Google Play Protect stops more than on 1.9B malware installs Android devices from non-Google Play sources.

Google also created App Defense Alliance partnering with mobile security companies such as ESET, Lookout, and Zimperium to find and protect against attacks.

Adversarial bad actors will continue to devise new ways to evade our detection systems, we commit to building the world’s safest and most helpful app platform will continue in 2020, reads Google blog post.

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

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