Google blocked over 1.75 million malicious apps before they were even released in 2025 alone
Google updated its security blog with a report on the safety measures it implemented on Google Play in 2025. According to the report, in 2025 alone, it blocked over 1.75 million apps that violated its policies and suspended 80,000 fraudulent developer accounts that attempted to publish harmful apps.
Google Online Security Blog: Keeping Google Play & Android app ecosystems safe in 2025
Google Play, Android's main app store, focuses on preventing apps from causing harm such as malware, financial fraud, hidden subscriptions, and privacy violations. According to Google's security blog, as malicious actors use AI to change their tactics and launch increasingly sophisticated attacks, Google has maintained an advantage by increasing its investment in AI and real-time defenses over the course of 2025, preventing these threats before they reach users.
Google Play apps undergo rigorous review for safety and policy compliance, with all apps published on the platform undergoing over 10,000 safety checks and ongoing checks and rechecks. Furthermore, in 2025, Google further strengthened its defenses by integrating Google's latest generative AI models into the review process, preventing unwanted access to sensitive data, blocking spam ratings and reviews, and providing a safe and enriching digital environment for children.
Specifically, we blocked over 1.75 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play, banned over 80,000 fraudulent developer accounts that attempted to publish harmful apps, prevented over 255,000 apps from accessing sensitive user data, and continue to strengthen our privacy policies.
Additionally, Google says that its continuously evolving detection models to ensure the accuracy of app reviews blocked 160 million spam ratings and reviews that fraudulently inflate or devalue ratings in 2025 alone. In total, this prevented the average rating of apps targeted by review bombing from dropping by more than half a star, protecting users and developers from useless reviews.
Additionally, Google has reported that it has continued to strengthen protection across the Android ecosystem by expanding its standard security features,
To address evolving fraud tactics, Google Play Protect has been enhanced in two key areas in 2025. The first is enhanced fraud prevention, which analyzes and automatically blocks the installation of apps that may abuse sensitive permissions to commit financial fraud. In 2025, Google Play Protect blocked 266 million high-risk installation attempts and protected users from 872,000 high-risk apps. The second is in-call fraud prevention, which adds new protection against 'in-call social engineering attacks' in which malicious users disable a device's built-in defenses and download malicious apps during a call.
Enforcing strict security checks to protect users can put a heavy burden on developers, so Google is focused on providing tools to protect users and businesses at the same time, through features like real-time feedback, proactive review checks, and trust-building developer verification that make it easier to build more secure apps.
'Making Google Play and Android the most trusted app ecosystem for everyone is our top priority,' said Vijaya Kaza, vice president and general manager of App & Ecosystem Trust at Google. 'This year, we'll continue to invest in AI-powered defenses to stay ahead of emerging threats and provide Android developers with the tools they need to build secure apps. We'll also continue to focus on tools to support developers who distribute apps on Google Play.'
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