Android Security 2017 Year in Review

Google Play Protect

In May, we , or PHAs. Every day, it automatically reviews more than 50 billion apps, other potential sources of PHAs, and devices themselves and takes action when it finds any.

Play Protect uses a variety of different tactics to keep users and their data safe, but the impact of machine learning is already quite significant: 60.3% of all Potentially Harmful Apps were detected via machine learning, and we expect this to increase in the future.

While Google Play Protect is a great shield against harmful PHAs, we also partner with device manufacturers to make sure that the version of Android running on user devices is up-to-date and secure.

Throughout the year, we worked to improve the process for releasing security updates, and 30% more devices received security patches than in 2016. Furthermore, no critical security vulnerabilities affecting the Android platform were publicly disclosed without an update or mitigation available for Android devices. This was possible due to the , coordination with industry partners, and built-in security features of the Android platform.

New security features in Android Oreo

We introduced a slew of new security features in Android Oreo: , providing more , and more.

We highlighted many of these over the course of the year, but some may have flown under the radar. For example, we updated the overlay API so that apps can no longer block the entire screen and prevent you from dismissing them, a common tactic employed by ransomware.

Openness makes Android security stronger

We've long said it, but it remains truer than ever: Android's openness helps strengthen our security protections. For years, the Android ecosystem has benefitted from researchers' findings, and 2017 was no different.

Security reward programs

We continued to see great momentum with our Android Security Rewards program: we paid researchers $1.28 million, totalling more than two million dollars since the start of the program. We also

In parallel, we also introduced . At the 2017 Mobile Pwn2Own competition, no exploits successfully compromised the Google Pixel. And of the exploits demonstrated against devices running Android, none could be reproduced on a device running unmodified Android source code from the