Apple says it blocked over $9 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions over the last five years, with over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent sanctions prevented in 2024 alone.
The company’s annual App Store fraud analysis also shows that Apple identified almost 4.7 million stolen credit cards and blocked over 1.6 million accounts from making transactions again.
The App Store team also blocked hundreds of thousands of unsafe apps last year that could impact App Store’s more than 813 million visitors a week, rejecting almost 1.9 million apps that didn’t meet Apple’s privacy and security standards out of 7.7 million App Store submissions reviewed.
Another 320,000 were rejected for being copycats of already submitted apps and misleading users, while around just over 43,000 were denied entry into the Apple App Store for using undocumented or hidden features.
“These bad actors can also attempt to deceive users by disguising potentially risky software as seemingly innocuous apps. Last year, App Review removed over 17,000 apps for bait-and-switch maneuvers such as these, as part of its ongoing efforts to routinely monitor and take action against problematic apps,” Apple said.
“Apps that attempt to access users’ personal data without their permission or knowledge are also prohibited from the App Store. In 2024, App Review rejected 400,000 app submissions for privacy violations.”
Discovery and account fraud
As a result of discovery fraud probes, the company removed another 143 million fraudulent ratings and reviews from the App Store in 2024 alone, as well as almost 9,500 deceptive apps from appearing in search results and another 7,400 apps from the App Store’s charts.
Apple added that the App Store App Review team examines an average of over 150,000 app submissions weekly, helping over 220,000 developers publish their apps on the App Store each year.
As part of its ongoing efforts to fend off account fraud, the company also terminated 146,000 developer accounts for potentially fraudulent activity and rejected 139,000 developer enrollments who attempted to submit malicious apps to the App Store.
It also blocked 711 million user account creations over fraud concerns and deactivated another 146 million linked to malicious activity.
According to last year’s fraud analysis report, Apple prevented $1.8 billion in suspicious transactions in 2023, slightly less than the $2 billion blocked in 2022.
Apple advises customers who suspect suspicious activity in an app downloaded from the App Store to report it at reportaproblem.apple.com immediately.
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