Today we're announcing a new program in Chrome to make HTTPS certificates secure against quantum computers. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) recently created a working group, PKI, Logs, And Tree Signatures (“PLANTS”), aiming to address the performance and bandwidth challenges that the increased size of quantum-resistant cryptography introduces into TLS connections requiring Certificate Transparency (CT). We recently shared our call to action to secure quantum computing and have written about challenges introduced by quantum-resistant cryptography and some of the steps we’ve taken to address them in earlier blog posts.
To ensure the scalability and efficiency of the ecosystem, Chrome has no immediate plan to add traditional X.509 certificates containing post-quantum cryptography to the Chrome Root Store. Instead, Chrome, in collaboration with other partners, is developing an evolution of HTTPS certificates based on Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs), currently in development in the PLANTS working group. MTCs replace the heavy, serialized chain of signatures found in traditional PKI with compact Merkle Tree proofs. In this model, a Certification Authority (CA) signs a single "Tree Head" representing potentially millions of certificates, and the "certificate" sent to the browser is merely a lightweight proof of inclusion in that tree.
MTCs enable the adoption of robust post-quantum algorithms without incurring the massive bandwidth penalty of classical X.509 certificate chains. They also decouple the security strength of the corresponding cryptographic algorithm from the size of the data transmitted to the user. By shrinking the authentication data in a TLS handshake to the absolute minimum, MTCs aim to keep the post-quantum web as fast and seamless as today’s internet, maintaining high performance even as we adopt stronger security. Finally, with MTCs, transparency is a fundamental property of issuance: it is impossible to issue a certificate without including it in a public tree. This means the security properties of today’s CT ecosystem are included by default, and without adding extra overhead to the TLS handshake as CT does today.
Chrome is already experimenting with MTCs with real internet traffic, and we intend to gradually build out our deployment such that MTCs provide a robust quantum-resistant HTTPS available for use throughout the internet.
Broadly speaking, our rollout spans three distinct phases.
This area is evolving rapidly. As these phases progress, we will continue our active participation in standards bodies such as the IETF and C2SP, ensuring that insights gathered from our efforts flow back towards standards, and that changes in standards are supported by Chrome and the CQRS.
We view the adoption of MTCs and a quantum-resistant root store as a critical opportunity to ensure the robustness of the foundation of today’s ecosystem. By designing for the specific demands of a modern, agile, internet, we can accelerate the adoption of post-quantum resilience for all web users.
We expect this modern foundation for TLS to evolve beyond current ecosystem norms and emphasize themes of security, simplicity, predictability, transparency and resilience. These properties might be expressed by:
To secure the future of the web, we are dedicating our operational resources to two vital parallel tracks. First, we remain fully committed to supporting our current CA partners in the Chrome Root Store, facilitating root rotations to ensure existing non-quantum-resistant hierarchies remain robust and conformant with the Chrome Root Program Policy. Simultaneously, we are focused on building a secure future by developing and launching the infrastructure required to support MTCs and their default use in Chrome. We also expect to support “traditional” X.509 certificates with quantum-resistant algorithms for use only in private PKIs (i.e., those not included in the Chrome Root Store) later this year.
As we execute and refine our work on MTCs, we look forward to sharing a concrete policy framework for a quantum-resistant root store with the community, and are excited to learn and define clear pathways for organizations to operate as Chrome-trusted MTC CAs.
We’ve shared how Android’s proactive, multi-layered scam defenses utilize Google AI to protect users around the world from over 10 billion suspected malicious calls and messages every month1. While that scale is significant, the true impact of these protections is best understood through the stories of the individuals they help keep safe every day. This includes people like Majik B., an IT professional in Sunnyvale, California.
Despite his technical background, Majik recently found himself on a call that felt dangerously legitimate. While using his Pixel, he received a call that appeared to be from his bank. The number looked correct, the caller knew his name and his address, and the story about a "suspicious charge" made perfect sense. "I’m usually pretty careful about this stuff," Majik recalled, "but I stayed on the line longer than I normally would. Even knowing how these scams work, it was convincing in the moment."
The turning point came when his phone displayed a Scam Detection warning during the call, which provided a critical moment to pause and reflect. Majik hung up, checked his bank app directly, and confirmed there was no fraudulent charge. For Majik, Scam Detection was the intervention he needed: “The warning is what made me pause and avoid a bad situation”.
While stories like Majik’s show how our existing protections provide a robust shield against scams, our work isn't done. As scammers evolve their tactics and create more convincing and personalized threats, we’re using the best of Google AI to stay one step ahead.
A recent evaluation by Counterpoint Research found that Android smartphones provide the most comprehensive AI-powered protections of any mobile platform. We are committed to building on this foundation by expanding our AI-powered protections to more users and devices, while rolling out new features that utilize on-device AI to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats.
To help protect you during phone calls, Scam Detection alerts you if a caller uses speech patterns commonly associated with fraud. We are bringing these protections to more of our users through new regional expansion and availability on new devices. Scam Detection for phone calls on Google Pixel devices is available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and the UK.
Scam Detection is already helping millions of users to stay safe from scammers, and we are expanding this feature to more manufacturers, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S26 series in the U.S. We are continuing to work with our partners to bring these industry-leading protections to even more users.
Powered by Gemini’s on-device model, Scam Detection provides intelligent protection against scam calls while ensuring that the processing stays on your device. This keeps your conversations private while delivering warnings in real-time. To preserve your privacy, the phone conversation processed by Scam Detection is neither stored on your device, nor shared outside of the device. To ensure you stay in total control of your experience, Scam Detection is turned off by default. When enabled, the feature only applies to calls identified as potential scams and is never used in calls with your contacts. You can easily manage these preferences in your phone settings whenever you choose.
We want everyone to feel secure when they open their messages, no matter where they are or what language they speak. To make this possible, we’ve now expanded Scam Detection for Google Messages to more than 20 countries. This includes support for several languages including English, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Beyond reaching more people, we are also making our protections more intelligent. We are enhancing how Google Messages identifies fraudulent texts by utilizing our Gemini on-device model on the latest Android flagship devices in the US, Canada, and the UK. The added power of Gemini’s on-device model allows for a much more nuanced analysis of complex conversational threats.
For example, it can better detect the subtle conversational patterns used in job offer scams or sophisticated romance baiting scams (also known as “pig butchering”), a deceptive tactic where a scammer builds a long-term "relationship" with a potential victim to gain their trust, before tricking them into a fraudulent investment. Because these methods rely on gradual manipulation and don’t present typical warning signs, they need more advanced capabilities to catch them at scale. These advanced protections are now rolling out on Google Pixel 10 series and other select devices, and will be available on the Samsung Galaxy S26 series.
Gemini-powered Scam Detection alerts a user to a job offer scam
Android continues to set the standard in mobile scam protections by leveraging advanced AI to identify and intercept threats as they happen. As scammer’s strategies shift, we remain committed to developing equally adaptive and intelligent defenses. Our goal is to provide you with peace of mind so you can continue to connect and communicate with confidence, knowing our multi-layered defenses are there to help protect your financial and personal data against mobile scams.
Disclaimers
1: This total comprises all instances where a message or call was proactively blocked or where a user was alerted to potential spam or scam activity.
The Android ecosystem is a thriving global community built on trust, giving billions of users the confidence to download the latest apps. In order to maintain that trust, we’re focused on ensuring that apps do not cause real-world harm, such as malware, financial fraud, hidden subscriptions, and privacy invasions. As bad actors leverage AI to change their tactics and launch increasingly sophisticated attacks, we’ve deepened our investments in AI and real-time defenses over the last year to maintain the upper hand and stop these threats before they reach users.
We’ve seen a clear impact from these safety efforts on Google Play. In 2025, we prevented over 1.75 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play and banned more than 80,000 bad developer accounts that attempted to publish harmful apps. These figures demonstrate how our proactive protections and push for a more accountable ecosystem are discouraging bad actors from publishing malicious apps, while our new tools help honest developers build compliant apps more easily. Initiatives like developer verification, mandatory pre-review checks, and testing requirements have raised the bar for the Google Play ecosystem, significantly reducing the paths for bad actors to enter.
User safety is at the core of everything we build. Over the years, we’ve continually introduced ways to help users stay safe and make informed app choices — from parental controls to data safety transparency and app badges. We’re constantly improving our policies and protections to encourage safe, high-quality apps on Google Play and stop bad actors before they cause harm.
Apps on Google Play undergo rigorous reviews for safety and compliance with our policies. Last year, we shared that Google Play runs over 10,000 safety checks on every app we publish, and we continue to check and recheck apps after they’ve been published. In 2025, we continued scaling our defenses even further by:
We also continued to improve our protections for the broader Android ecosystem, by expanding Google Play Protect and real-time security measures like in-call scam protections to help keep users safe from scams, fraud, and other threats.
As Android’s built-in defense against malware and unwanted software, Google Play Protect now scans over 350 billion Android apps daily. This proactive protection constantly checks both Play apps and those from other sources to ensure they are not potentially harmful. And, last year, its real-time scanning capability identified more than 27 million new malicious apps from outside Google Play, warning users or blocking the app to neutralize the threat. To benefit from these protections, we recommend that users always keep Google Play Protect on.
While fraudsters are constantly evolving their tactics, Google Play Protect is evolving faster. Last year, we expanded:
Keeping Android and Google Play safe requires deep collaboration. We want to thank our global developer community for their partnership and for sharing their feedback on the tools and support they need to succeed.
In 2025, we focused on reducing friction for developers and providing them with tools to safeguard their businesses:
Our top priority remains making Google Play and Android the most trusted app ecosystems for everyone. This year, we’ll continue to invest in AI-driven defenses to stay ahead of emerging threats and equip Android developers with the tools they need to build apps safely. To empower developers who distribute their apps on Google Play, we’ll maintain our focus on embedding checks to help build apps that are compliant by design, while providing guidance to help proactively avoid policy violations before an app is published. We’ll also roll out Android developer verifications to hold bad actors accountable and prevent them from hiding behind anonymity to cause repeated harm.
Thank you for being part of the Google Play and Android community as we work together to build a safer app ecosystem.
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