Tag: google play protect

Android 15 Could Include App Quarantine Feature to Protect Users From Malicious Apps: Report

Android 15 is expected to arrive on Pixel smartphones later this year and several features from Google’s upcoming operating system (OS) update have surfaced thanks to the developer previews and the first public beta release. Google is reportedly working on a handy new feature that could help users isolate a malicious app on their smartphone after it is detected. If the feature is added to the final Android 15 release, the operating system might be able to ‘quarantine’ apps, just like antivirus programs on Windows.

Spotted by Android Authority on the latest Android 15 beta, Google is working on the ability to allow a system app — like Google Play Services or the Play Store — to isolate apps and apply some restrictions on them. Once an app has been quarantined, its capabilities will be severely limited, which might prevent it from taking adverse action on the user’s device. 

The code for the app quarantine feature exists on Android 15, but it is yet to be enabled, according to the publication. Based on the current code, the feature will reportedly prevent a quarantined app from showing notifications, hide its windows and stop activities, prevent it from ringing the device and prevent other apps from interacting with some its services.

The purported Quarantined Apps interface on Android 15
Photo Credit: Android Authority/ Mishaal Rahman

 

Google is reportedly working on a “QUARANTINE_APPS” permission that can only be granted to apps signed by the same certificate that Google uses to sign the Android operating system — effectively limiting the ability to quarantine apps to the Play Store (or Google Play Services).

It’s worth noting that while anti-malware software for Windows computers is also capable of quarantining apps, Android is much more secure than Windows and apps do not have access to several parts of the phone without first getting permission from the user. As a result, quarantined apps will still be visible in the app drawer on Android 15, but tapping the greyed-out icon will inform users that the app isn’t available, while displaying two buttons — OK and Unquarantine app, according to the publication.

There’s no word on whether the feature will be available with Android 15, as it was first spotted in a developer build of Android 14 back in 2022. If Google decides to enable the functionality on Android 15, it appears likely that only the Play Store or Google Play Services will be able to perform the app quarantining functions. It could, however, come in handy when Google’s Play Protect malware scanner detects an app that is exhibiting suspicious behaviour but isn’t a known threat. 

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Google Reveals to Have Blocked Over a Million Policy-Violating Apps From Being Published on Play Store in 2021

Google has revealed that it blocked as many as 1.2 million apps from being published on Google Play in 2021 as they were violating its policies. The company said that it introduced privacy-focussed features and enhancements to protect users against bad apps and developers, and improved data safety that all helped bring improvements for Android consumers. In addition to its ongoing efforts, Google has the Google Play Protect pre-installed malware protection that is claimed to scan billions of installed apps each day across billions of devices to limit malicious and unwanted software from Android phones.

In a blog post, Google’s Android security and Privacy team said that by blocking 1.2 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play, it prevented billions of harmful installations. The Android maker also noted that it banned 190,000 bad developer accounts to reduce malicious and spammy developers. It also closed around 500,000 developer accounts that were inactive or abandoned.

“Providing a safe experience to billions of users continues to be one of the highest priorities for Google Play,” the team said.

In May, Google announced its Data safety section, which essentially works similar to Apple’s privacy ‘nutrition labels’, and lets developers give users the information about the privacy and security of their apps directly through their app listings on Google Play. It rolled out to users earlier this week, and developers are required to complete the information required in this section for their apps by July 20.

The Data safety section is one of the moves by Google to help make users aware of what data they are sharing with app developers and for what purposes. However, since the onus of sharing data access information is on developers, there could be some instances of misleading details. Google, though, said that apps that don’t become compliant will be subject to policy enforcement.

Google has features including the Policy and Programs section on Google Play Console. It also worked with system development kit (SDK) developers to improve the safety of its SDKs. As a result of all these initiatives, Google said that as much as 98 percent of apps migrating to Android 11 or higher have reduced their access to sensitive APIs and user data. It also claimed to have significantly reduced “the unnecessary, dangerous, or disallowed use of Accessibility APIs in apps migrating to Android 12, while preserving the functionality of legitimate use cases.”

Specifically for Google Pixel users, Google said that its in-house devices now use new machine learning models that help improve the detection of malware through Google Play Protect.

“The detection runs on your Pixel, and uses a privacy preserving technology called federated analytics to discover bad apps,” the team said.

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