Security is a major theme for Google, whether with Android or its own smartphones. The Mountain View firm has just announced the arrival of new security features for its Pixels to flush out scams and malware. Google relies on advances in artificial intelligence to offer two real-time protection functions.
The first is the detection of telephone scams from its Phone application to better protect users from scams and fraud. While many French people complain about abusive telephone canvassing, Google reminds us that scammers steal more than 1,000 billion dollars per year and that telephone calls are their preferred technique. With the emergence of AI, scams are becoming more and more sophisticated and the firm will now rely on its AI to identify them and inform them in the event of a fraudulent call.
Google will detect phone scams automatically
Detection is done locally on the device, analyzing your call to see if it looks like a scam. The American giant gives the example of a call from a fake bank advisor who would ask you to urgently transfer money. The tool will be able to provide an audio alert, haptic feedback or a visual warning to alert the user. No audio or transcription will be stored on the device or sent to Google servers. The tool works with the Gemini Nano model on the Pixel 9 series, but Google will offer scam detection on older models. All models from Pixel 6 onwards will be able to take advantage of this via other machine learning models built into the device.
Note that the solution will first arrive in beta on the Phone application in the English version in the United States. Detection will be disabled by default and the user can enable it for all calls or during a particular call.
Your Android smartphone will also alert you in real time against malware
The Android operating system is also the target of malware and Google is trying to maintain security with a protection module called Google Play Protect. It scans applications and alerts the user against the presence of malicious applications. The American group wants to go even further by offering a new live threat detection tool. When a harmful application is detected, Play Protect will immediately send an alert to allow immediate action to be taken to protect your device. The device will examine the behavior of applications in real time in order to flush out apps that are trying to hide their behavior. Some malware even has the ability to remain dormant for a period of time before activating, usually flying under the radar of security tools.
Initially, live threat detection will focus on stalkerware. These software may collect personal or sensitive data without user consent. Next, Google plans to extend detection to other types of threats and Pixels will not be the only ones affected. Indeed, the deployment will begin on Pixels starting with Pixel 6 before extending to smartphones from other manufacturers in the coming months.
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