When it comes to malware, smartphone apps are one of the most affected and especially the one on Android. Due to this Google Play Store has been regularly auditing and checking the application on its platform and removing the ones with any kind of vulnerability and malware. These audits and checks have increased much more this year and still continues, showing that there has been an increase in the malware infestation of apps. However, to prevent it, Google always suggests users download and install apps from Play Store and not any random website.
But it seems that apps on the PlayStore were majorly responsible for malware-infected apps. Research from NortonLifeLock and IMDEA software institute in Madrid found that Google Play Store is the biggest distributor of malware on Android smartphones. As per the research, the Google Play store accounts for 67.2 percent of malicious app installs on Android phones. The research team took details of over 12 million apps in the last four months to come to this conclusion. Also, various third-party app stores contribute to 10.4 percent of malicious app installs.
The last few months have not only seen an increase in the number of malicious apps but also an increase in new types of malicious apps. Due to this, Google has now been super active in finding such applications on their domain and removing it from the platform. Also, Google has identified many apps in this area that were included on Google Play Store as they were clean and an update to the app is what added the malicious component to it.