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Ok, Google. Thats not good.

If theres one clear message you can take away from the latest real-world test of Android security products, its that relying upon Google to protect your smartphone isnt really good enough.

Independent anti-malware testing lab AV-Test pitted 17 Android security apps, including Androids own built-in Google Play Protect, against nearly 6,700 malicious apps.

3,300 of the malicious apps were considered totally new having been discovered in the previous 24 hours. The remainder of the malware, described as the reference set, was compromised of what AV-Test described as particularly widespread apps that have already been in circulation for up to four weeks.

Six of the 17 apps tested (Antiy AVL, Bitdefender Mobile Security, Cheetah Security Master, Norton 360, Trend Micro Mobile Security, and Kaspersky Internet Security for Android) achieved a perfect real-time detection rate of 100% against the totally new malicious apps and the additional reference set.

The apps from AhnLab, G Data and McAfee performed admirably too detecting 99.9% in the real-time detection test, and a perfect score against the reference test set

But Googles Play Protect fell far behind with just a 37% detection rate against the new malicious apps seen in the past 24 hours, and 33% against Android malware seen in the preceding four weeks.

To make things even worse, Google Play Protect incorrectly false alarmed on 30 harmless apps misidentifying them as malicious.

As AV-Test explains, the message is pretty clear for Android users who want to reduce the chances of malicious apps running on their smartphone:

As the detection rates of Google Play Protect are really quite poor, the use of a good security app is highly recommended.

Whats worrying about that is, in my experience, most Android users havent installed a security app onto their phone perhaps assuming that its not necessary, or more trouble than its worth.

Despite these disappointing results for Google Play Protect, its worth remembering that one of the best things Android users can do to reduce their exposure to malicious apps is to only install apps from the official Google Play marketplace rather than side-load apps from third-party sources.

The rest is here:
Android anti-virus products put to the test which are the best at stopping new malicious apps? - Graham Cluley Security News