Tech giant Google banned 173,000 developer accounts last year to combat malware operations and fraud rings from infecting Android users’ devices with malicious apps.
The company revealed in its “bad apps” yearly report that it also prevented almost 1.5 million apps linked to various policy violations from reaching the Google Play Store.
The Google Play Commerce security team also blocked fraudulent and abusive transactions that could’ve led to more than $2 billion in losses.
“In 2022, we prevented 1.43 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in part due to new and improved security features and policy enhancements — in combination with our continuous investments in machine learning systems and app review processes,” the Google Security team said.
“We also continued to combat malicious developers and fraud rings, banning 173K bad accounts, and preventing over $2 billion in fraudulent and abusive transactions.”
