The company says fewer bad actors are targeting Google Play with malicious apps, a change the tech giant attributes to increased investment in proactive security systems and artificial intelligence technology.
In the latest Android App Ecosystem Security Report published on Thursday, Google said it prevented 1.75 million violating apps from being published on Google Play in 2025, a decline from 2.36 million in 2024 AND 2.28 million in 2023.
The annual report provides a look at how Google keeps Android users safe by checking and monitoring apps for protection against malware, financial fraud, privacy breaches, fraudulent subscriptions and other threats.
For example, Google says it blocked over 80,000 developer accounts in 2025 who tried to publish these types of bad apps. The number is also declining year-on-year, from 158,000 in 2024 and 333,000 in 2023.
Google touted how its investments in artificial intelligence and other real-time security measures have helped combat such threats, but also how they have acted as a deterrent.
“Initiatives like developer vetting, mandatory pre-review checks, and testing requirements have raised the bar for the Google Play ecosystem by significantly reducing the entry paths for bad actors,” the company's blog post explained, adding that “multi-layered AI-powered security” “discourages bad actors from publishing malicious apps.”
Google noted that it currently performs more than 10,000 security checks on every published app and continues to re-check them after publication. The company also integrated its latest generative AI models into its app review process, which helped reviewers find more complex malicious patterns faster. Google said it plans to increase investment in artificial intelligence in 2026 to stay ahead of emerging threats.
Additionally, Google said it prevented more than 255,000 apps from gaining undue access to sensitive user data, a figure that is lower than 1.3 million in 2024. Last year, the company also blocked 160 million spam ratings and reviews and prevented targeted apps from dropping an average of 0.5 stars survey bombing.
Meanwhile, Android's security system, known as Google Play Protect, identified more than 27 million new malicious apps and warned users or blocked the apps from running. This is an increase from the 13 million non-Play Store apps identified in 2024 and the 5 million recorded in 2023. These increases seem to suggest that bad actors are now increasingly avoiding the Play Store by attacking users with their malicious apps.
