Google is killing apps in the Play Store all the time, but 2025 has been especially brutal. Hundreds of apps. Millions of downloads. Banking trojans, ad fraud schemes, North Korean hacker spyware. And here’s the kicker: Just because Google pulled them from the store doesn’t mean they’re gone from your phone.
Security researchers have been discovering malicious apps at an accelerating pace, hiding in the Google Play Store all year. We’re not saying sketchy apps available from any random website. They were in Google’s official store, the one everyone trusts, the one with all those security checks supposedly protecting you.
The Numbers Are Wild
Just in August, 77 malicious apps were removed after they had been downloaded 19 million times. In September, an additional 224 apps were removed after being downloaded more than 38 million times. By March, researchers at Bitdefender identified more than 300 malicious apps with over 60 million total downloads.
And that’s not including the smaller purges taking place all the time. In June, 20 counterfeit crypto wallet apps disapperaed. In March, Google removed apps that stored KoSpy spyware associated with North Korean hackers. The list of apps removed from Google Play Store this year reads like a rap sheet.
And these aren’t apps with 50 downloads from some no-name developer. Some had hundreds of thousands of installs. They looked legit. They had good reviews. They did what they claimed to do, at least at first.
What These Apps Actually Did
The malware came in different flavors, all of them bad.
Anatsa, also called TeaBot, is a banking trojan that steals login credentials and can now target over 800 banking and cryptocurrency apps worldwide. It watches what you type. It hijacks financial apps to make fake transactions. It’s basically handing your bank account to criminals on a silver platter.
Joker malware showed up in about a quarter of the malicious apps. Once installed, it can read your text messages, make phone calls, grab your contacts, and subscribe you to premium services without asking. You might not notice until you see unexplained charges on your phone bill.
Then there’s the ad fraud stuff. Apps that seemed normal would suddenly start displaying full-screen ads constantly, basically making your phone unusable. They’d hide their icons so you couldn’t even find them to delete them. They’d generate billions of ad requests per day, slowing down your device while criminals got paid for fake ad views.
KoSpy spyware stayed hidden for over two years, collecting call logs, messages, and GPS locations. North Korean hackers were behind that one. It disguised itself as utility and security tools, which is pretty brazen when you think about it.
How They Got Past Google
Here’s what’s frustrating. Google’s supposed to have all these security measures. AI-powered threat detection. Real-time scanning. Multiple layers of protection.
And yet these apps kept slipping through.
Some developers used already-established legitimate accounts that had clean apps on offer. They’d publish a few harmless apps to build trust, then sneak in the malicious ones. That legitimacy helped them get past Google Play Protect screening.
Others would upload benign apps initially, then push updates that added the malicious code later. By the time Google’s systems caught on, millions of people had already downloaded them.
The really clever ones hid their icons after installation and even disguised themselves in the Settings menu. One app changed its name to “Google Voice” to look official. Users trying to remove it couldn’t even find it.
The Google Play Store Warning Nobody Saw
Google didn’t exactly advertise these mass removals. No big announcements. No push notifications telling users, “Hey, that app you downloaded last month is actually malware.”
Security researchers found the problems and reported them. Google removed the apps. But if you’d already installed one? You probably had no idea unless you follow tech news obsessively or run security software that flagged it.
Google even made things more annoying this month by removing the uninstall button for system apps from the Play Store. If an official Android app update goes sideways now, you can’t easily roll it back through the store anymore. You’ve got to dig into Settings to do it. Not exactly user-friendly.
Google Play Store App Deletion Doesn’t Mean You’re Safe
And here’s the part that folks are getting wrong. When google deletes apps from play store, they vanish from the store. They do not automatically vanish from your phone.
While Google has removed the KoSpy apps, they may still be installed on thousands of devices. Running in the background. Collecting data. Sending it to North Korean hackers.
The predatory loan app with an eye-popping 100,000 downloads? Google took it off the store, but it continues to run on affected devices and stealthily capturing financial information.
You will have to remove these apps yourself. And if they’ve hidden their icon or disguised themselves, you may not even realize they’re there.
What You’re Supposed to Do
Check your installed apps regularly. Go through the list. If something you do not recognize or use is there, delete it.
Watch the permissions that apps ask for. Why does a flashlight app want permission to access your contacts and text messages? It doesn’t. That’s suspicious.
Read reviews before downloading anything. Not just the star rating. Actual reviews. If members are complaining about out-of-the-ordinary behavior or suspicious activity, trust them.
Don’t automatically trust an app because it is in the official Play Store. That confidence is what these crooks are counting on. The Play Store’s better than random websites, sure, but it’s not foolproof.
Use phone security software. Android devices too need safeguarding just as much as computers. Malwarebytes and other companies make mobile security apps specifically designed to catch this stuff.
Why This Keeps Happening
It’s a cat and mouse game. Google improves security. Criminals find new ways around it. Google patches those holes. Criminals adapt again.
Security researchers describe it as each side trying to outsmart the other. Google’s got AI and machine learning working on the problem. But criminals have AI too, and they’re motivated by millions of dollars in potential profit.
The sheer volume makes it worse. Thousands of apps get submitted to the Play Store daily. Google can’t manually review every single one thoroughly. Automated systems catch a lot, but they’re not perfect.
And developers keep finding new tricks. Steganography to hide malicious code in image files. Starting clean then adding malware later through updates. Using legitimate developer accounts to build trust before going rogue.
The Bottom Line
In 2025 alone, Google’s removed hundreds of malicious apps representing well over 100 million downloads. That’s not a few edge cases. That’s a systematic problem with how app stores work.
Your phone might be carrying one of these apps right now. It could be draining your battery, stealing your data, subscribing you to services, or preparing to empty your bank account.
The fact that they were in the official Google Play Store doesn’t mean they were safe. It just means they hadn’t been caught yet.
Go check your installed apps. Delete anything suspicious. Pay attention to what you’re downloading. Don’t assume Google’s protecting you because they’re not catching everything, not even close.
And maybe think twice before trusting that five-star utility app you’ve never heard of, no matter how official it looks.