Google has announced new security tools for Android: Google Messages will gain an ‘enhanced protection’ feature that uses Gemini cloud artificial intelligence models to analyse messages from unknown senders, and the company plans to make the system available to “hundreds of millions of additional users” by the end of the year.
According to the company, scammers often conceal their intentions with lengthy conversations to gain users’ trust. The new feature is intended to rapidly assess potential risks and detect more sophisticated attacks that evade traditional protection methods. Data are encrypted during analysis and processed in a specially protected environment to which neither Google nor third parties have access.
In addition to cloud analysis, the system will use the local Gemini Nano model to check web links in messages and assess whether a URL may contain malicious content. It also blocks third-party apps from activating call forwarding and has added automatic hiding of confidential information during screen sharing in Chrome and Android WebView.
The update extends the fraudulent message notification feature, which appeared last year on Pixel and Samsung smartphones, to devices from other manufacturers — including Honor, Motorola, OPPO, OnePlus, Realme, Tecno, Vivo and Xiaomi.
