San Francisco, Nov 7 (IANS): Google has partnered with mobile security companies ESET, Lookout and Zimperium to stop malicious apps from hitting the Play Store and harming Android users.

The company's new partnership initiative is called the App Defense Alliance.

"We're excited to take this collaboration to the next level, announcing a partnership between Google, ESET, Lookout, and Zimperium. It's called the App Defense Alliance and together, we're working to stop bad apps before they reach users' devices," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to Google, Android is on over 2.5 billion devices and this popularity also makes it an attractive target for abuse.

The abuse can take the form of hidden malware or secret code designed to spy and drain away sensitive user data.

"Working closely with our industry partners gives us an opportunity to collaborate with some truly talented researchers in our field and the detection engines they've built. This is all with the goal of, together, reducing the risk of app-based malware, identifying new threats, and protecting our users," the company added.

Additionally, as part of this alliance, the partner firms are integrating Google Play Protect detection systems with each partner's scanning engines.

This will generate new app risk intelligence as apps are being queued to publish. The partners will analyse that dataset and act as another vital set of eyes, prior to an app going live on the Play Store.