A study by AV-Comparatives shows that the majority of antivirus apps on the Google Play Storedo not provide users with adequate protection against malware.
To find out, the company downloaded 250 of these apps from the Google Play Store. It then ran tests to see if these apps were able to protect Androidfrom the 2,000 most common malwareusing AV-Comparatives' automated testing framework.
The devices were configured to download and install malicious applications, assuming that antivirus applications could block most security threats.
For this purpose, Samsung Galaxy S9 devices running Android 8.0 were mainly used. However, because some applications did not work properly with this installation, Nexus 5 devices running Android 6.01 were also used.
Unfortunately, the results were not very encouraging, as only 23 of the apps used in the study were able to successfully detect and block 100 percent of the malware samples. Furthermore, 80 apps were able to detect more than 30 percent of the malware without making a single mistake.
In contrast, 138 of the 250 apps blocked less than 30% of malware samples or had high error rates, flagging files that were not malicious. There were also 16 apps that had not been properly ported to Android 8, which reduced their protection capabilities on devices running newer versions of Android.
The Austrian antivirus company has identified several antivirus apps that primarily use a "blacklist" to flag potential malware, which is very easy for malware writers to bypass. In fact, they don't scan downloaded apps for malware, which is what such an app is required to do.
Therefore, in order to choose an antivirus application, a user should not rely solely on reviews from other users, as they may be fake. Instead, the company recommends using only applications from well-known and certified vendors, who participate in tests conducted by independent institutes and have professional websites that provide contact information and a privacy policy.
