Security Architecture, Endpoint/Device Security, Endpoint/Device Security, Threat Management, Malware, Endpoint/Device Security, Endpoint/Device Security, Endpoint/Device Security

AI helping drive down Android malware infection ate

Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking off as Google's primary method of detecting malware effecting Android devices and is now detecting more than half of all issues discovered.

The AI, or machine learning, functionality is installed on 2 billion devices worldwide through Google Play Protect, Google security head Adrian Ludwig told Cyberscoop. The program has been under development for three years and was pushed live about a year ago, but only in the last six months has it become truly effective and started driving down the number of infected devices, he said.

So far during 2017 the number of devices hit with user-installed malware has dropped to 0.25 percent of all Android devices being used from  0.63 percent, Cyberscoop reported. The AI software has also become more precise in how it hunts out malware. Earlier it searched very broadly for issues, but now tries to scout out specific families of malware.

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