Google India blocked 13.9 million malicious apps, saved 3.2 million Android device owners from online fraud

Google on Tuesday (February 11) to mark Safer Internet Day, released interesting facts about how the company has managed to save millions of Android phone owners from online fraud.

In November 2024, the search engine giant launched the pilot programme of 'Enhanced Play Protect' in India. Since then, Google has managed to cover 50 per cent of the Android devices in the country.

As of January 31, 2025, Google blocked more than 13.9 million potentially harmful apps from getting installed on around 3.2 million devices.

Further, Google also runs DigiKavach 'Mauka Gawao' campaign, to raise awareness about common financial scams such as fake job offers, fraud investments and loan opportunities. The campaign reached more than 177 million Indians and counting.

Google launched DigiKavach in India to help develop new countermeasures against scammers.

With the Play Protect scheme, Google will flash warnings on the screen, block risky transactions and remove potentially suspicious content from surfacing on Android phones.

This way, Google prevented fraudulent transactions worth over Rs 13,000 crores on Google Pay and displayed 41 million warnings to safeguard Indian users.

"Under DigiKavach, we've partnered with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, and onboarded Google Pay, on to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal. This allows us to receive and share critical information to investigate fraudulent financial activities and ensure that with each identified threat, the entire ecosystem becomes capable of mitigating it," said Kartikeya Mitra, Trust & Safety Site Lead, Trust & Safety, Google India.

The company's philanthropic arm, Google.org has offered grant support to two nonprofits CyberPeace Foundation, which has equipped over 197,000 individuals with fact-checking and responsible online behavior skills, and The Asia Foundation, which is working with local implementing partners, Foundation for MSME Clusters and CUTS International to equip 45,000 MSMEs with the tools and knowledge to combat cyber threats.

Globally, Google scans 200 billion plus apps daily and thanks to proactive measures, it managed to identify over 13 million new malicious apps outside of Google Play.

Also, it successfully blocked over 2.36 million policy-violating apps from ever reaching Google Play in 2024. And, Google also punishes the culprits who submit such malicious apps.

Google banned over 158,000 developer accounts globally that attempted to publish harmful apps.

Even Google's YouTube too, carry out campaigns to block potential scam videos as well. It removed over 4.1 million channels and 85 thousand videos globally for violating our spam, deceptive practices, & scams policies.

It has even taken measures to curb fake news with egregious clickbait headlines.

In a related development, Google has announced to bring SynthID to the Google Photos app.

With SynthID-like watermark tools, it can help people and authorised security agencies control misinformation, catch the culprits and bring them to justice.

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