Google Play Protect Gets Live Threat Detection of Dangerous Apps

Google Play Threat Detection

We just got done telling you about Pixel phones and their new real-time Scam Detection for calls, but Google actually has a second part to today’s security announcements. Google Play is getting its own real-time threat detection service to let you know if an app is harmful and what actions you can take.

As you can see from the image up top, Google Play Protect will scan apps and pop-up a notification that says “Unsafe app found” if there is a threat. The real-time scanning looks at activity patterns of apps in order to determine if they are malicious, like if they are trying to hide their behavior or if they sit dormant for long periods of time before turning on their shady modes.

To start, Google Play will focus on stalkerware, which is code that “may collect personal or sensitive data for monitoring purposes without user consent.” Google could expand detection to other types of apps in the future, but that’s where we begin this journey.

Like with Scam Detection, Google says that all of this detection is happening on-device in order to preserve your privacy.

Live threat detection is available right now through Google Play Protect on Pixel 6 and above.

// Google Security

This post was last modified on November 13, 2024 11:10 am