The disclosed computer-implemented method for detecting potentially malicious applications may include (1) detecting a request issued by an application running on a client device to download a file from a remote device, (2) determining that the request calls an application programming interface that enables the client device to download the file from the remote device, (3) determining that a parameter passed to the application programming interface in the request has been implicated in a previous attempt to download a known malicious file, and then in response to determining that the parameter has been implicated in a previous attempt to download a known malicious file, (4) classifying the application that issued the request as potentially malicious. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.