Apple blocked over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions on its App Store in 2024 and blocked nearly 2 million risky app submissions from reaching users.
The firm revealed this in its latest annual App Store fraud analysis, which disclosed the ongoing efforts to maintain the platform as a secure marketplace for developers and users alike.
The App Store, which launched in 2008 and now sees more than 813 million visitors each week, is available in 175 regions globally. Apple’s total amount blocked in the last five years is more than $9 billion.
Apple stated that it employed a comprehensive strategy to detect, investigate, and prevent malicious activity from reaching users. “These threats range from deceptive apps designed to steal personal information to fraudulent payment schemes that attempt to exploit users.
Apple’s antifraud infrastructure helps ensure that malicious developer and customer accounts are swiftly flagged and eliminated.
In 2024, Apple said it terminated more than 146,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and rejected an additional 139,000 developer enrollments, preventing bad actors from submitting their apps to the App Store in the first place.
“Apple also rejected over 711 million customer account creations and deactivated nearly 129 million customer accounts last year, blocking these risky and malicious accounts from carrying out nefarious activity.
“That includes spamming or manipulating ratings and reviews, charts, and search results that risk compromising the integrity of the App Store,” it stated.
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Over the past month, Apple has also stopped nearly 4.6 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved third-party marketplaces.
Preserving the App Store’s safe and secure marketplace requires constant vigilance, as bad actors continue to evolve their tactics to defraud users. These threats range from deceptive apps designed to steal personal information to fraudulent payment schemes that attempt to exploit users.
“Before any app makes its way onto the App Store, it is vetted by a member of Apple’s App Review team, all of whom are deeply familiar with the App Review Guidelines, and focused on ensuring apps meet Apple’s standards for quality and safety,” Apple said.
On average, this team reviews nearly 150,000 app submissions each week, helping bring new apps and updates to the App Store. Last year, App Review helped more than 220,000 developers publish their first app on the App Store.
App Review involves both human review and automated processes to detect and take action on apps that are suspected to be potentially harmful to users.
Apple stated that, “With over 7.7 million App Store submissions reviewed in 2024, more than 1.9 million were rejected for failing to meet Apple’s standards for security, reliability, and user experience, including for privacy violations or fraud concerns.
“App Review rejects any potentially malicious apps it identifies during review, and the team’s investigation into one fraudulent app often results in the takedown of several others linked to the same problematic developer. In 2024, App Review removed more than 37,000 apps for fraudulent activity.”
