Apple blocked $7 billion in fraud attempts on the App Store

In its fourth annual fraud prevention analysis, Apple has detailed the ways that it has prevented fraud attempts, and blocked what it calls "problematic apps" from appearing on the App Store.

Alongside the $7 billion in fraudulent transactions the company says it blocked, it also blacklisted 14 million stolen credit cards. In the process, it stopped 3.3 million accounts from future transactions.

"In 2023, Apple terminated close to 118,000 developer accounts, a decrease from 428,000 terminations from the prior year, thanks to continued improvements to prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts in the first place," Apple said on Tuesday. "In addition, more than 91,000 developer enrollments were rejected for fraud concerns and prevented from submitting problematic apps to the App Store."

And, to prevent fake reviews, in 2023 alone, Apple blocked over 153 million customer account creations under suspicion of fraud. And, it deactivated about 374 million accounts for "fraud and abuse."

In April 2024, Apple stopped 3.8 million attempts to install pirated apps through the Developer Enterprise Program. This covers 47,000 different apps that were attempted over the last year.

There is no question that Apple's App Store filters and approval process isn't perfect. Even so, the company says that it rejected 1.7 million app submissions. Of those, over 248,000 were blocked because they were copycat apps, or attempted to mislead users.

Beyond that, 375,000 apps were blocked for privacy violations, and 38,000 stopped for containing hidden or undocumented features. Over 40,000 apps were rejected for "bait-and-switch" activity, presumably similar to what Epic tried with Fortnite.

In 2023, Apple processed 1.1 billion app ratings and reviews. Of that total, the company says that nearly 152 million fake app ratings were removed.