Apple has once again demonstrated its App Store is a safe place for customers and developers after it stopped more than $US2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2024 and rejected two million risky app submissions.
In the last five years more than $US9 billion in fraudulent transactions have been prevented according to Apple’s annual App Store Fraud Analysis.
The App Store opened in 2008 and has become the leading marketplace for developers to release apps and grow their businesses in more than 175 regions around the world.
On average there are more than 813 million visitors to the App Store per week – it is a trusted venue to download apps and discover new ones.
Apple’s anti-fraud infrastructure includes flagging and blocking malicious developer and customer accounts.
In 2024 more than 146,000 developer accounts were terminated because of fraud concerns and another 139,000 developer enrolments were also rejected to prevent potential scammers from submitting their apps.
Last year, Apple also rejected more than a staggering 711 million customer accounts being created and deactivated nearly 129 million customer accounts which could have been used to manipulate ratings, reviews charts and search results.
Apple is also working hard outside the App Store and detected and blocked more than 10,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts which were trying to distribute malware, pornography apps, gambling apps and copies of legitimate apps from the App Store.
Apple also works tirelessly to protect developers from having their apps cloned, altered or weaponized to spread malicious software.
All apps available on the App Store are vetted thoroughly by Apple’s App Review team to ensure they meet Apple’s high standards for quality and safety.
The team reviews, on average, around 150,000 app submissions every week.
Last year the App Store allowed more than 220,000 developers to publish their very first app.
The App Review department reviewed more than 7.7 million submissions in 2024 with 1.9 million rejected for not meeting Apple’s standards when it comes to security, reliability and for privacy violations and fraud concerns.
Some try to circumvent the App Reviews safeguards and try to sneak bad apps into the App Store with the aim of defrauding users.
These are picked up by the review team who rejects any potentially malicious apps that it identifies during the review process.
This also leads the team to remove several other apps linked to the same dodgy developer.
More than 37,000 apps were removed in 2024 for fraudulent activity.
Some developers also resort to trying to conceal features and functionality in their code which are only enabled after the app passes app review.
But Apple is a step ahead and monitor such behaviour. It picked up more than 43,000 app submissions in 2024 that contain hidden or undocumented features.
But another 320,000 submissions were also removed because they were found to be copying other apps, spreading spam and misleading users.
Appe also removed more than 143 million fraudulent ratings and reviews from the App Store and remove more than 7,400 apps from the App Store charts and nearly 9,500 deceptive apps from appearing in App Store search results.
Apple also identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards and banned more than 1.6 million accounts from transacting on the App Store again.
Developers also have access to world class payment technologies including Apple Pay and Store Kit which provide a safe and secure way to make purchases on the App Store. In App purchases are also closely monitored so users have a secure and trusted environment which not only prevents fraud but also protects their privacy.
