MADRID, April 30 (Portaltic/EP) –
Google It prevented 2.28 million applications from reaching its official Play Store last year for violating the policies of this service, something it achieved with the different security functions it works with.
The company seeks to offer a “trustworthy” experience in its service, which it currently considers his “top priority”, as stated in a statement. To do this, it takes a series of measures, which correspond to the acronym SAFE (Security), which begins with the need to safeguard users to help them discover quality apps that they can trust, as well as promoting responsible innovation.
Likewise, Google has insisted that it seeks to keep users “ahead of emerging threats” by evolving its policies, tools and technology.
Based on those principles, the company has made recent improvements and introduced new measures to continue keeping users of its official app store safe, “even as the threat landscape continues to evolve.”
With this work, as well as “advanced machine learning and review processes,” the company prevented 2.28 million apps from being published last year that violated Play Store policies.
On the other hand, the technology company has explained that it has also strengthened its incorporation and developer review, to those who require more information to identify themselves the first time they open their Google Play accounts.
As a result of its investment in dedicated profile review tools and processes, it has been able to identify bad actors and fraud networks, to the point that has banned 333,000 malicious accounts of Google Play for ‘malware’ and other frauds in their conditions of use.
On the other hand, Google has confirmed that almost 200,000 app submissions to the Play Store were rejected and neutralized. Thanks to this, it has managed to “ensure the proper use of sensitive permissions, such as background location or SMS access.”
Additionally, to protect user privacy at scale, it has partnered with providers of software development kits (SDK) to limit access and sharing of sensitive data.
Finally, he recalled that some of the latest measures he has carried out in terms of security, with the expansion of the Google Play SDK index, which now covers the SDKs used in almost 6 million applications throughout the Android ecosystem.
Likewise, he has mentioned his collaboration with Microsoft and Meta as members of the steering committee of the Application Defense Alliance (ADA) under the Joint Development Foundation of the Linux Foundation.
SAFER AND TRANSPARENT APPS
Google has also recalled the incorporation of a transparency labeling system, which allows identifying those virtual private network (VPN) applications that have completed an independent security review through the Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) of the ADA.
This validation, as explained at the time of its announcement, introduces a badge that informs users that the application has been designed following “the industry’s best minimum mobile privacy and security practices.”
Likewise, it has qualified the measures with which it already works to protect users who install third-party applications, since Play Protect incorporates real-time analysis of malicious code in applications to eliminate those that may endanger user data. .
In this sense, he has recognized that ‘machine learning’ algorithms “learn from each application submitted to Google for review, “They analyze thousands of signals and compare the behavior of applications.” Thanks to this capability, more than 5 million new malicious ‘apps’ have already been detected outside of their official store.
Around app development, it has said it is putting more restrictions on new personal developer accounts by mandating new testing requirements, including DUNS numbers -which provides a unique identity to each business or company- before they place their applications on Google Play.
Thus, new ‘apps’ must have an option to initiate the deletion of user accounts and data from the applications themselves and ‘online’. In this sense, Google has said that this requirement “is especially important” so that the deletion of the account can be requested without having to reinstall the application.
Finally, the company has mentioned a recent lawsuit filed against two scammers who managed to introduce fraudulent cryptocurrency applications in the Google Play Store, a campaign that registered more than 100,000 victims. “This lawsuit is a fundamental step to hold these malicious actors accountable and send a clear message that we will vigorously pursue those who try to take advantage of our users,” he said.
