Google reports that fewer bad actors are targeting its Google Play store with malicious apps. The company credits this positive shift to its increased investments in proactive security systems and artificial intelligence technology.
In its latest annual Android app ecosystem safety report, Google stated it prevented 1.75 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in 2025. This number represents a decrease from the 2.36 million apps blocked in 2024 and the 2.28 million blocked in 2023. The report details how Google reviews and monitors apps to protect users from malware, financial fraud, privacy invasions, and other threats.
As part of this effort, Google banned more than 80,000 developer accounts in 2025 for attempting to publish harmful apps. This figure is also down significantly from 158,000 banned accounts in 2024 and 333,000 in 2023.
Google highlighted that its initiatives, including developer verification, mandatory pre-review checks, and testing requirements, have raised the security bar for the entire Play ecosystem. The company stated that these measures, along with its AI-powered, multi-layer protections, are actively discouraging bad actors. Google now runs over 10,000 safety checks on every app before publication and continues to monitor apps after they are live. The integration of generative AI models has also helped human reviewers identify complex malicious patterns more efficiently, with plans to increase AI investments in 2026.
In other areas, Google prevented more than 255,000 apps from gaining excessive access to sensitive user data in 2025, a notable drop from 1.3 million in 2024. The company also blocked 160 million spam ratings and reviews last year, preventing significant rating damage to apps targeted by review bombing campaigns.
Meanwhile, Android’s built-in defense system, Google Play Protect, identified and acted against more than 27 million new malicious apps from outside the Play Store. This is an increase from 13 million in 2024 and five million in 2023. This trend suggests that while security within the Play Store is improving, bad actors are increasingly attempting to distribute harmful apps through other channels.