Google Play to Enhance Security in 2025 with Stronger Threat Detection and Verified App Badges

Google Play to Enhance Security in 2025 with Stronger Threat Detection and Verified App Badges

Google today previewed upcoming safety features coming to Google Play and Android apps in 2025.  Image:Google Google Play Protect’s live threat detection already works to warn users about stalkerware (or collecting personal/sensitive data to monitor users without consent) by looking at an app’s activity patterns. It will be expanding to “target malicious applications that try to impersonate financial apps,” with Google looking for malicious apps that lay dormant or try to obscure their behavior. These warnings (“Unsafe app found” notification) happen on-device (using Private Compute Core) and launched in November for the Pixel 6 and newer.  Another focus for end users this year is making it “even harder for malicious actors to hide or trick users into harmful installs.” Google says its “most recent analysis found over 50 times more Android malware from Internet-sideloaded sources (like browsers and messaging apps) than on Google Play.”  Users can also expect more Google Play badges, like “…