Apple prohibited $7 billion fraudulent transactions on App Store from 2020-23

As per a report published by Apple on May 14, from 2020 to 2023 the company had prohibited a total of over $7 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions on the App Store.

The report added that in 2023, Apple blocked over $1.8 billion fraudulent transactions. It also said that the company had blocked over 14 million stolen credit cards from transacting on its App Store between 2020 and 2023.

The report also revealed that more than 1.7 million app submissions were rejected by Apple as the apps failed to meet the App Store’s security and privacy standards. The company also terminated around 374 million developers and customer accounts for security concerns.

Apple terminated around 118,000 developers accounts in 2023. It has also rejected more than 91,000 developers’ enrolments due to fraud concerns, preventing submissions of problematic apps to the Apple App Store.

Moreover, Apple said it blocked over 153 million fraudulent customer account creations and deactivated about 374 million accounts for spamming or manipulating ratings and reviews, charts, and search results which the company said “threaten the integrity of the App Store and its users and developers.”

Last year, over 1.7 million app submissions were rejected for various reasons including privacy violations and fraudulent activity. The company said that there were numerous instances where the identified apps initially appeared to be harmless products such as a photo editor or a puzzle game but later transformed into illegal movie streaming platforms and gambling apps. In 2023, Apple removed or rejected 40,000 apps for such “bait-and-switch” activities.

There were also instances where Apple found that a submitted app was a copy of an existing app and was meant to trick or scam users. According to the report published by the company, it rejected more than 248,000 such app submissions in 2023. Additionally, over 38,000 app submissions were rejected for containing hidden or undocumented features.

According to Apple, in the last 12 months, the company has detected and blocked over 47,000 “illegitimate apps” on “pirate storefronts” (third-party app stores) from reaching its users. Also, it has blocked almost 3.8 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly through the Developer Enterprise Program, which allows organisations to distribute apps to its employees for internal use.