Google Play Protect gets more powerful with enhanced real-time scanning

Google Play Protect, the security feature that protects Android users from malicious and unwanted apps, is upgrading. It can now flag harmful apps that previously avoided detection using more thorough scanning. The update will make the Play Protect service far more effective and powerful.

Google Play Protect uses real-time Scanning for new threats

The Google Security blog notes that Google Play Protect scans billions of apps in the Google Play Store every day to protect users against unwanted or harmful apps. Even if you install an app outside of Google Play, Google Play Protect checks sideloaded apps against its database of known malicious apps. It even leverages your device’s resources to scan for harmful apps installed from external sources.

But cybercriminals are now using “polymorphic” viruses, which can sneak past Google’s defenses by altering their markers. That makes it harder to cross-check against an existing library of malware definitions. Even when Play Protect is always scanning for malware. The new update introduces real-time scans for apps that Google has never scanned or identified.

Google Play Protect can now immediately test newly installed apps on your Android for signs of viruses. “Today, we are making Google Play Protect’s security capabilities even more powerful with real-time scanning at the code level to combat novel malicious apps,” Google announced in a blog post.

The on-the-spot check looks inside the app’s code for threat signals and sends them to Google’s infrastructure for analysis. Google Play Protect will take some time to complete the scan and automatically block harmful apps. If, say, a sketchy app is using AI to change its identifying features, the scan will flag it.

The update will first roll out to Android users in India. It’s currently slated for release in limited regions. But in the next few months, the update will reach users worldwide. It’ll be automatically enabled on devices with Android 6.0 or later that have Google Play Services installed.

Ever-improving Threat Protection

The Play Protect defenses will continue to improve as it scans and analyzes more and more apps. Google no longer has to rely on pre-existing definitions to weed out potentially harmful or unwanted apps. The real-time scans will help it detect emerging threats before they can infect any users. Google also remarked that Google Play Protect is only one of its several lines of defense on Android. Ongoing security updates, app permissions, spam protection, and more help keep billions of Android users safe. And this multi-layered protection is constantly being upgraded to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.