Google Highlights Huge AI‑Driven Crackdown On Android Malware And Fraud Apps

Google is flexing its AI muscle in an effort to make its Android ecosystem safer and more secure. Malicious actors are constantly evolving the ways attacks are deployed, including leveraging AI themselves. Google says it was able to use the “investments in AI and real-time defenses over the last year to maintain the upper hand and stop these threats before they reach users.”

The sheer number of apps that have been blocked in 2025 were staggering. Google claims that it stopped 1.75 million malicious apps from being published in the Play Store. Additionally, over 80,000 developer accounts that were attempting to publish these malicious apps have been shut down permanently.

It isn’t just malicious apps that were under scrutiny, though. There were 255,000 apps that were blocked from obtaining “excessive access to sensitive user data.” The company is committed to further strengthening its policies to ensure more app development is done with an eye toward privacy and user choice.


These AI powered efforts to keep users safe will be bolstered with a push to get developers verified, which Google says ensures “there is a real, accountable identity behind every app,” and that “verification helps legitimize authentic developers and prevents bad actors from hiding behind anonymity to repeatedly cause harm.” However, this decision has been a point of contention amongst developers and Android users who have become accustomed to a more open and less centralized ecosystem.

While the use of AI has gotten pushback from many users in some markets, this particular deployment of the technology looks to be paying dividends for all involved. Although, it will be interesting to see how Google is able to balance the freedom found in Android along with trying to keep more naïve users better protected with its move towards robust developer verification.