Malware

Our Malware policy is simple, the Android ecosystem including the Google Play Store, and user devices should be free from malicious behaviors (for example, malware). Through this fundamental principle we strive to provide a safe Android ecosystem for our users and their Android devices.

Malware is any code that could put a user, a user's data, or a device at risk. Malware includes, but is not limited to, Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs), binaries, or framework modifications, consisting of categories such as trojans, phishing, and spyware apps, and we are continuously updating and adding new categories.

Though varied in type and capabilities, malware usually has one of the following objectives:

• Compromise the integrity of the user's device.
• Gain control over a user's device.
• Enable remote-controlled operations for an attacker to access, use, or otherwise exploit an infected device.
• Transmit personal data or credentials off the device without adequate disclosure and consent.
• Disseminate spam or commands from the infected device to affect other devices or networks.
• Defraud the user.

An app, binary, or framework modification can be potentially harmful, and therefore can generate malicious behavior, even if it wasn't intended to be harmful. This is because apps, binaries, or framework modifications can function differently depending on a variety of variables. Therefore, what is harmful to one Android device might not pose a risk at all to another Android device. For example, a device running the latest version of Android is not affected by harmful apps which use deprecated APIs to perform malicious behavior but a device that is still running a very early version of Android might be at risk. Apps, binaries, or framework modifications are flagged as malware or PHA if they clearly pose a risk to some or all Android devices and users.

The malware categories below, reflect our foundational belief that users should understand how their device is being leveraged and promote a secure ecosystem that enables robust innovation and a trusted user experience.

Malware categories

Backdoors

Code that allows the execution of unwanted, potentially harmful, remote-controlled operations on a device.

These operations may include behavior that would place the app, binary, or framework modification into one of the other malware categories if executed automatically. In general, backdoor is a description of how a potentially harmful operation can occur on a device and is therefore not completely aligned with categories like billing fraud or commercial spyware. As a result, a subset of backdoors, under some circumstances, are treated by Google Play Protect as a vulnerability.

Note: The backdoor malware category classification relies on how the code acts. A necessary condition for any code to be classified as a backdoor is that it enables behavior that would place the code into one of the other malware categories if executed automatically. For example, if an app allows dynamic code loading and the dynamically loaded code is extracting text messages, it will be classified as a backdoor malware.

However, if an app allows arbitrary code execution and we don't have any reason to believe that this code execution was added to perform a malicious behaviour then the app will be treated as having a vulnerability, rather than being backdoor malware, and the developer will be asked to patch it.

Billing fraud

Code that automatically charges the user in an intentionally deceptive way.

Mobile billing fraud is divided into SMS fraud, Call fraud, and Toll fraud.

SMS fraud

Code that charges users to send premium SMS without consent, or tries to disguise its SMS activities by hiding disclosure agreements or SMS messages from the mobile operator notifying the user of charges or confirming subscriptions.

Some code, even though they technically disclose SMS sending behavior, introduce additional behavior that accommodates SMS fraud. Examples include hiding parts of a disclosure agreement from the user, making them unreadable, and conditionally suppressing SMS messages from the mobile operator informing the user of charges or confirming a subscription.

Call fraud

Code that charges users by making calls to premium numbers without user consent.

Toll fraud

Code that tricks users into subscribing to or purchasing content via their mobile phone bill.

Toll Fraud includes any type of billing except premium SMS and premium calls. Examples of this include direct carrier billing, wireless access point (WAP), and mobile airtime transfer. WAP fraud is one of the most prevalent types of Toll fraud. WAP fraud can include tricking users to click a button on a silently loaded, transparent WebView. Upon performing the action, a recurring subscription is initiated, and the confirmation SMS or email is often hijacked to prevent users from noticing the financial transaction.

Stalkerware

Code that collects personal or sensitive user data from a device and transmits the data to a third party (enterprise or another individual) for monitoring purposes.

Apps must provide adequate prominent disclosure and obtain consent as required by the User Data policy.

Apps exclusively designed and marketed for monitoring another individual, for example parents to monitor their children or enterprise management, for the monitoring of individual employees, provided they fully comply with the requirements described later in this document are the only acceptable monitoring apps. These apps cannot be used to track anyone else (a spouse, for example) even with their knowledge and permission, regardless if persistent notification is displayed. These apps must use the IsMonitoringTool metadata flag in their manifest file to appropriately designate themselves as monitoring apps.

Monitoring apps must comply with these requirements:

• Apps must not present themselves as a spying or secret surveillance solution.
• Apps must not hide or cloak tracking behavior or attempt to mislead users about such functionality.
• Apps must present users with a persistent notification at all times when the app is running and a unique icon that clearly identifies the app.
• Apps must disclose monitoring or tracking functionality in the Google Play store description.
• Apps and app listings on Google Play must not provide any means to activate or access functionality that violate these terms, such as linking to a non-compliant APK hosted outside Google Play.
• Apps must comply with any applicable laws. You are solely responsible for determining the legality of your app in its targeted locale.

Refer the Use of the isMonitoringTool Flag Help Center article for more information.

Denial of service (DoS)

Code that, without the knowledge of the user, executes a denial-of-service (DoS) attack or is a part of a distributed DoS attack against other systems and resources.

For example, this can happen by sending a high volume of HTTP requests to produce excessive load on remote servers.

Hostile downloaders

Code that isn't in itself potentially harmful, but downloads other PHAs.

Code may be a hostile downloader if:

• There is reason to believe it was created to spread PHAs and it has downloaded PHAs or contains code that could download and install apps; or
• At least 5% of apps downloaded by it are PHAs with a minimum threshold of 500 observed app downloads (25 observed PHA downloads).

Major browsers and file-sharing apps aren't considered hostile downloaders as long as:

• They don't drive downloads without user interaction; and
• All PHA downloads are initiated by consenting users.

Non-Android threat

Code that contains non-Android threats.

These apps can't cause harm to the Android user or device, but contain components that are potentially harmful to other platforms.

Phishing

Code that pretends to come from a trustworthy source, requests a user's authentication credentials or billing information, and sends the data to a third-party. This category also applies to code that intercept the transmission of user credentials in transit.

Common targets of phishing include banking credentials, credit card numbers, and online account credentials for social networks and games.

Elevated privilege abuse

Code that compromises the integrity of the system by breaking the app sandbox, gaining elevated privileges, or changing or disabling access to core security-related functions.

Examples include:

• An app that violates the Android permissions model, or steals credentials (such as OAuth tokens) from other apps.
• Apps that abuse features to prevent them from being uninstalled or stopped.
• An app that disables SELinux.

Privilege escalation apps that root devices without user permission are classified as rooting apps.

Ransomware

Code that takes partial or extensive control of a device or data on a device and demands that the user make a payment or perform an action to release control.

Some ransomware encrypts data on the device and demands payment to decrypt the data and/or leverage the device admin features so that it can't be removed by a typical user. Examples include:

• Locking a user out of their device and demanding money to restore user control.
• Encrypting data on the device and demanding payment, ostensibly to decrypt the data.
• Leveraging device policy manager features and blocking removal by the user.

Code distributed with the device whose primary purpose is for subsidized device management may be excluded from the ransomware category provided they successfully meet requirements for secure lock and management, and adequate user disclosure and consent requirements.

Rooting

Code that roots the device.

There's a difference between non-malicious and malicious rooting code. For example, rooting apps let the user know in advance that they're going to root the device and they don't execute other potentially harmful actions that apply to other PHA categories.

Malicious rooting apps don't inform the user that they're going to root the device, or they inform the user about the rooting in advance but also execute other actions that apply to other PHA categories.

Spam

Code that sends unsolicited messages to the user's contacts or uses the device as an email spam relay.

Spyware

Spyware is a malicious application, code, or behavior that collects, exfiltrates, or shares user or device data that is not related to policy compliant functionality.

Malicious code or behaviors that can be considered as spying on the user or exfiltrates data without adequate notice or consent is also regarded as spyware.

For example, spyware violations include, but are not limited to:

• Recording audio or recording calls made to the phone
• Stealing app data
• An app with malicious third party code (for example, an SDK) that transmits data off device in a manner that is unexpected to the user and/or without adequate user notice or consent.

Trojan

Code that appears to be benign, such as a game that claims only to be a game, but that performs undesirable actions against the user.

This classification is usually used in combination with other PHA categories. A trojan has an innocuous component and a hidden harmful component. For example, a game that sends premium SMS messages from the user's device in the background and without the user's knowledge.

A Note on Uncommon Apps

New and rare apps can be classified as uncommon if Google Play Protect doesn't have enough information to clear them as safe. This doesn't mean the app is necessarily harmful, but without further review it can't be cleared as safe either.

Maskware

An application that utilizes a variety of evasion techniques in order to serve the user different, or fake, application functionality. These apps mask themselves as legitimate applications or games to appear innocuous to app stores and use techniques such as obfuscation, dynamic code loading or cloaking to reveal malicious content.

Maskware is similar to other PHA categories, specifically Trojan, with the main difference being the techniques used to obfuscate the malicious activity.

Mobile Unwanted Software (MUwS)

Google defines unwanted software (UwS) as apps that aren't strictly malware, but are harmful to the software ecosystem. Mobile unwanted software (MUwS) impersonates other apps or collects at least one of the following without user consent:

• Device phone number
• Primary email address
• Information about installed apps
• Information about third-party accounts

MUwS is tracked separately from Malware. You can view the MUwS categories here.

Google Play Protect Warnings

When Google Play Protect detects a violation of the malware policy, a warning will display for the user. Warning strings for each violation are available here.