Google is beefing up security at the doors to its Android Market, with a new beta product code-named "Bouncer," among other steps aimed at reducing malware.
According to a post by Hiroshi Lockheimer, vice president of engineering for Android, Bouncer provides automated scanning of Android Market for potentially malicious software without disrupting the user experience or requiring developers to go through an application approval process.
Once an application is uploaded, Bouncer immediately analyzes it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags.
Lockheimer writes that malware on Android has been decreasing, noting that between the first and second halves of 2011, Google saw a 40 percent decrease in the number of potentially malicious downloads from Android Market.