Google brings new security features to combat online fraud, malware-laced apps on Android phones

Google's Scam Detection feature uses powerful on-device AI to notify you of a potential scam call happening in real-time by detecting conversation patterns commonly associated with scams.

Thanks to the numerous conveniences they offer, smartphones have become an integral part of our lives. Almost nobody steps out of their home without one. According to a latest report, there are close to 4.88 billion smartphone users worldwide.

However, a lot of people are naïve and less aware of cyber crimes. In the last couple of years, there has been a huge surge in online fraud where threat actors are using phishing techniques on victims to voluntarily disclose their financial details and steal their money.

With each passing day, they are coming up with new ways, such as the recent surge of digital arrests across India. They use a primordial emotion, fear, to make victims transfer money to their accounts.

Worldwide, people are losing more than $1 trillion annually to online scams. Google, which runs the Android mobile platform, holds 70 per cent of the market share. The search engine has introduced two new security features to protect its users to combat online fraud.

First up is the Scam Detection feature. It uses powerful on-device AI to notify you of a potential scam call happening in real-time by detecting conversation patterns commonly associated with scams.

If it matches, the phone will flash a red-colour banner on the screen to warn of possible scam threats.

Google Scam Detection feature for Android phones.

"The AI detection model and processing are fully on-device, which means that no conversation audio or transcription is stored on the device, sent to Google servers or anywhere else, or retrievable after the call," said Lyubov Farafonova, Product Manager and Steve Kafka, Group Product Manager, Android.

Also, Google is further fortifying the Play Protect with Live threat detection in Android phones. It will be able to work at all times, looking out for malware-laced unsafe apps.

No matter how hard the harmful apps try to hide to avoid detection, Play Protect will analyse minute behavioural signals related to the use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services.

Google Unsafe app detection feature.

If a harmful app is found, users will receive a real-time alert, allowing them to take immediate action to protect their Android phone.

"At launch, live threat detection will focus on stalkerware, code that may collect personal or sensitive data for monitoring purposes without user consent, and we will explore expanding its detection to other types of harmful apps in the future," said Farafonova.

Both the Scam Detection and Live threat detection features will be available first on Pixel 6 and newer models. Google has plans to expand in other Android phones in the coming months.

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