Apps that potentially contain malware remain on the Google Play Store for an average of 77 days after being detected, according to an analysis of software.
鈥淭he impression has been that app markets are doing a great job taking down malicious apps, so the problem is basically solved,鈥� says at Boston University. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not as much of a solved problem as is thought.鈥�
Stringhini and his colleagues at antivirus software company Norton monitored the results of 8.8 million daily scans from 11.7 million users of an antivirus app between 2019 and 2020. All the users had Android smartphones 鈥� those running the operating system developed by Google 鈥� which account for 72 per cent of the global smartphone market.
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Android smartphones are able to download apps from the Google Play store, which is monitored by Google Play Protect, a security service that warns users via a notification if they have installed an app found to contain potential malware.
However, Stringhini鈥檚 analysis shows it takes an average of 77 days between an app being found to be potentially risky and it getting removed from the Play Store. And on the user side, people on average only uninstalled an app flagged by Google Play Protect 24 days after being told it was a risk.
The researchers found that when suspicious apps are identified, their makers sometimes move to other, third-party app stores.
This work shows that some app makers will repackage their malware several times to avoid detection, says at the University of Surrey, UK. 鈥淭he big question is how is this fixed? Not quickly is the simple answer, so Android users need to exercise caution about what they鈥檙e downloading and from where.鈥�
A Google spokesperson told New 杏吧原创 that Google Play Protect scans more than 100 billion apps every day. 鈥淲e鈥檙e always looking for ways to improve the security of apps downloaded from Google Play,鈥� they added. Last year, Google鈥檚 machine-learning detection capabilities and app review processes stopped 962,000 apps that would have violated Google policies being published, according to the spokesperson.
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