The smartphone app store is the most popular mobile app store in the world, but it’s also the one with the most potential for fraud, with billions of dollars stolen every year, according to a new study.
According to data from the research company SecurityScore, the Android app store, as a whole, has generated $20.6 billion in fraud and theft in 2017.
“If the Android App store was more trustworthy, we could get $10 billion in theft from the app store,” the study’s authors said.
The study looked at a range of Android app stores from Google Play to Amazon Appstore, which includes apps from Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.
Google’s mobile app is now the most trusted app store across all devices and platforms, according the researchers.
The researchers said that while the Google Play app is the least likely to contain malicious code, it does have the highest levels of malware.
“Google Play is also one of the most likely apps to receive malware,” the researchers said.
“The risk for Android app developers is much higher than for Apple, Facebook, Amazon or Google Play, and the malware risk for Google Play developers is higher than those for Apple or Facebook.”
The study also found that Android apps are more likely to be downloaded from sites that use advertising.
This means that users can potentially be misled by ads that appear to be legitimate, but may be in fact paid for.
“Advertising on Android app pages may mislead users that the ads are legitimate and that the app is safe to download,” the authors said, adding that apps can also be used to trick users into downloading malware.
The Android app is not the only platform where Android is vulnerable to malicious apps.
The study found that Apple iOS 7, Samsung’s iOS 9, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 all had vulnerabilities in the way they display user interface elements.
According the researchers, the number of malicious apps in each platform increased by an average of 1.3 per cent a year between 2014 and 2017, which is a significant increase.
The biggest threats to Android in 2017 were “malware” apps, which have been reported to have caused a total of $2.4 billion in malware and theft.
The report said that about 85 per cent of Android malware in 2017 was in the form of ransomware, which could be used as a form of payment to unlock or unlock your phone.
“The vast majority of malicious app downloads are paid for by users,” the report said.