Google: We’re cracking down on Android malware

Google says it is starting to see progress in its fight against harmful software targeting Android users.

The rate of installation for Android malware fell by 50 percent last year, according to a new Android Security Year in Review report.

{mosads}Overall, only 1 percent of Android users downloaded malware in 2014, the report stated. The number was even lower — 0.15 percent — for Android users that only used the Google Play store to download applications.

“In 2014, the Android platform made numerous significant improvements in platform security technology, including enabling deployment of full disk encryption, expanding the use of hardware-protected cryptography, and improving the Android application sandbox with an SELinux-based Mandatory Access Control system (MAC),” the report stated.

“Exploitation attempts were tracked for multiple vulnerabilities, and the data does not show any evidence of widespread exploitation of Android devices.”

Google released the review as part of its effort to protect users from harmful software in its “ecosystem,” both on mobile devices and on the company’s Chrome Web browser. Engineers recently announced that they disabled nearly 200 dangerous extensions in Chrome.