While many people believe that an antivirus app is nowadays as essential on mobile
devices as on desktops in the past, a new report has claimed that a large number of
antivirus and anti-malware apps on Android are just ineffective or unreliable. The
report, which has been published by Austrian antivirus testing company AV-
Comparatives, highlights that of 250 antivirus apps surveyed, only 80 were found to
detect over 30 percent of the 2,000 malicious apps threw at them during individual
tests. However, most of them were also had relatively high false alarm rates.
According to the detailed report, the team at AV-Comparatives chose 138 vendors
that are offering popular antivirus apps on Google Play.
The list of vendors includes most popular names, such as Avast, AVG, BitDefender,
Cheetah Mobile, DU Master, ESET, Falcon Security Lab, F-Secure, Google Play
Protect, MalwareBytes, McAfee, Symantec, and VSAR among others. Instead of
using an emulator, as pointed out by ZDNet, the researchers manually tested each
of the 250 apps they've selected for the study. They essentially installed the apps on
an Android device and then automated the process to open a browser and download
a malicious app to install it on the device. The process was followed 2,000 times,
and it helped to highlight the outcome that most of the apps aren't effective to detect
virus or malware.
Having said that, the testing by AV-Comparatives found that some of the available
antivirus apps were able to block malicious apps. But there were many apps that
were capable of detecting on some old Android malware samples and allowing other
apps that contain certain strings -- essentially using a "whitelist" for sake of
protection. But the reality is apparently quite far away from the presumption as 170
of the 250 antivirus apps were failed in the basic detection tests. Also, only 23 of the
examined apps are claimed to have detected 100 percent of the malware samples,
whereas 16 apps in the list aren't even designed for devices running Android 8.0
Oreo or above. Notably, Google has its Play Protect to offer malware-protection on
Android devices by default. But a large number of smartphone users often install
apps from unknown sources, such as in the form of APK files or through third-party
app stores, that affect security on smartphones. Instances of malicious apps on
Google Play were also reported in the past that are making Android overall a
notorious mobile platform.
