Google Play Conducts 200 Million Security scans per Day

Google has enacted a system through Google play for Android devices called Verify Apps. The latest Android Security State of the Union includes clarification about what the company scans is your phone through Google Play-downloaded apps as well as apps you have downloaded elsewhere.

Google has gathered and compiled a wide range of Android data: third party can only offer a sight at the overall picture for Android. Keeping that in mind Google has extracted some high-level points from the data.

• Google Play conducts 200 million security scans of devices per day and protects over billion devices. 
• Fewer than 1% of Android devices had a Potentially Harmful App (PHA) installed in 2014. Fewer than 0.15% of devices that only install from Google Play had a PHA installed.
• The overall worldwide rate of Potentially Harmful Application (PHA) installs decreased by nearly 50% between Q1 and Q4 2014. 
• Over 400 million connections per day are checked by SafetyNet for potential SSL issues.
• Android and Android partners responded to 79 externally reported security issues, and over 25,000 applications in Google Play were updated following security notifications from Google Play.

Google breaks down the various security threats which appear to be potential harmful to Android users. Google has improved Android security in nearly every area. 

Google’s scanning software is searching for Potentially Harmful Applications, also known as PHAs.

According to Google PHA is "any application that can potentially harm the user, their device, or their data."

The company has taken important steps to improve security. It has improved system-level protection for apps installed outside of the Google Play Store, where the security risks are visibly higher.

Google's Verify Apps technology scans apps for potential issues at the time of installation and it also pursues scanning them afterwards. According to company's whitepaper, during the month of October last year, the Verify Apps tool was scanning 200 million devices per day solely for security details; not for personal data. As stated by Google, the Verify Apps scanning volume jumped more than 300 percent last year.