Good news for Android users concerned about their security, Google will require applications to be quarantined on your smartphone if the operating system detects malicious behavior.
Although Android already has strong safeguards to protect users from malicious apps, some malicious titles can still slip through the cracks. To further enhance security, it appears that an upcoming version of Google’s mobile operating system will introduce a new “quarantine” state to deal with misbehaving applications.
If you’ve ever used robust antivirus software on a desktop operating system, you’re probably familiar with the concept of quarantine. When security protections detect potentially malicious files but are unable to safely delete or disable them, the quarantine serves as a secure holding area, preventing software from running and causing damage.
Android 15 will quarantine apps that violate the rules
This same basic principle of quarantine should make its way to Android. Elements have surfaced in recent Android 15 Developer Previews indicating a new “quarantine” status that apps can be placed into. This is abouta status that deprives them of their ability to perform actions while leaving them visible to the user.
The traditional concept of completely quarantining software doesn’t quite apply to Android’s sandboxed application environment. Mobile operating system applications are already significantly limited in terms of access and potential harm compared to desktop programs. However, Google found a way to Effectively neutralize misbehaving apps without disabling them completely.
When quarantined, an Android application has its capabilities severely limited in the following way:
- No notifications are displayed
- All application windows are hidden and activities are interrupted
- Unable to ring the device
- Services can no longer be queried by other applications
- Inability to link to or receive broadcasts
- It will not appear in dialog boxes that request access to other applications
The new quarantine will complement another well-known mode on Android
This state of quarantine is similar to a more restrictive version of the existing “disabled” mode for Android applications. Effectively deprived of its ability to interact with other applications or with the operating system, a quarantined application becomes little more than an inert package.
So who is authorized to quarantine an application? This authority appears to be limited to high-level system apps and services like Google Play Protect – Google’s built-in malware protection. Standard apps or even those with administrator access do not have the ability to quarantine other apps.
Only applications signed with the same certificate as the operating system itself or particularly hardened system applications will benefit from this permission. Google has, rightly, imposed strict limits on such a powerful ability.
It’s not yet clear when Android’s quarantine feature will come into use. Traces of this feature first appeared in the Android 14 QPR2 Beta build last November, but Google has since removed some of the associated documentation. The feature’s flag is still present in the latest preview builds of Android 15, but there’s still no direct manual way to test it, according to Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman.
For the vast majority of users, it’s likely they’ll never encounter Android’s quarantine capability in action. But for those who find themselves affected by a misbehaving app that has escaped Google’s filters, it will serve as an important last line of defense. As a reminder, Android 15 is currently in its first public beta, and you can install it now.