Huawei smartphones claim that Google is a malicious application. What to do about it?

The Google application, which is almost always found by default in Android phones, has been considered harmful by some Chinese smartphones. How is it possible that smartphone software warns about the flagship application of the manufacturer of Android itself?

Huawei smartphones warn against Google. “Looks like malware”

Users report problems, including: on Reddit, online forums, and the Google support site. As when using YouTube and then Google on a Huawei smartphone, a box appeared at the bottom of the screen with a threat warning. “Google appears to be malware and poses a high risk. Immediate uninstallation is recommended,” one of the messages reads. “Google appears to be infected. Immediate uninstallation recommended” is what the screenshots show.

, that after expanding the details, they receive information that the Google application has been identified as a Trojan horse (a malicious program that pretends to be a real, useful application). Information about the threat appears primarily on Huawei smartphones (which are cut off from Google services due to sanctions), but some people report similar messages on devices of two other Chinese companies – Honor and Vivo.

Smartphones affected by Google’s SMS-PA Trojan, which deals with, among other things, sending paid premium SMS messages in the background and stealing confidential information from the phone. They describe the level of threat as “high”. Internet users’ reports show that the surprising message appears on smartphones all over the world, including in Poland.

Some commentators theorize that the smartphones’ behavior may be “Huawei’s retaliation” for American sanctions, but this is extremely unlikely. The problem most likely results from an unspecified error that causes Google to be incorrectly identified as a malicious application by some smartphones. We recently had a similar situation when Google Play Protect identified the official Samsung Wallet application as malicious.

So there is no reason to be afraid of the Google app and get rid of it from your phone, as the erroneous messages suggest. As Huawei has already confirmed, in the case of its smartphones, the cause of the problem is the recent update of the Google application and a “component modification” that confused the built-in antivirus.