As the rate of cybercrime increases, companies are bringing developments in their cybersecurity strategies. Google is also not an exception in this race. On October 3, the tech giant announced that it will bring a fraud detection pilot in India. The fraud detection pilot was earlier launched for Brazil and Singapore. Now it will be available for Indian users too.
In the first four months of 2024, Indians reportedly lost over ₹1,750 crore (over $212 million USD) to cyber-criminals, as reported by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).So, in order to combat this, Google is bringing its fraud detection pilot in India.
Introducing fraud detection pilot
In an official blog, Google said that they are expanding Google Play Protects security with an updated fraud protection. The tech giant aims to keep you safe by bringing in the fraud detection pilot. The fraud protection will scan, analyze and automatically block suspicious app. For example you install some app and the feature finds it suspicious it will block the app from getting installed. Also the app will not be downloaded. Even if you try to download that later, you will not be allowed to do so.
In addition to this the fraud protection will also block apps that are prone to ‘asking for sensitive data’. It will analyze the permissions of the apps in real-time. This mainly focuses on the permission which has been misused by fraudsters earlier. These mainly include one-time passwords sent through notifications or SMS. As soon as the pilot starts working, it will automatically block the app,without any explanation.
The pilot can also track apps which might have the capability of tracking your device illegally. For example, if your device faces an issue and the fraudster (pretending to be a guide) uses remote monitoring, it can instantly identify the fraud and block him. The fraud detection pilot will start rolling out by next week. It will be available to all Android users with Google Play services.
Other safety upgrades
Furthermore, initially the fraud protection pilots were launched in Thailand, Brazil and Singapore. The tech giant boasts of blocking about 900,000 high-risk installations in Singapore alone.
In addition to this, last year, Google had launched Google Play Protect real-time scanning. This security system scans around 200 billion apps everyday on different devices. Google further highlighted that the tool helped to identify around 10 million malicious apps globally.
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