Nine Billion Dollars Saved by Users in Five Years * SciTechTimes.com

Apple has announced that its App Store prevented over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2024, bringing the total to more than $9 billion over the past five years. This significant achievement underscores Apple’s ongoing commitment to maintaining a secure and trustworthy digital marketplace for its users and developers.

A Comprehensive Approach to Fraud Prevention

In 2024, Apple terminated more than 146,000 developer accounts due to fraud concerns and rejected an additional 139,000 developer enrollments, effectively preventing bad actors from submitting malicious apps to the App Store. The company also rejected over 711 million customer account creations and deactivated nearly 129 million customer accounts that were found to be risky or malicious.

Apple’s efforts extend beyond the App Store itself. In 2024, the company detected and blocked over 10,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts, which included malware, pornography apps, gambling apps, and pirated versions of legitimate apps. Additionally, Apple stopped nearly 4.6 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved third-party marketplaces.

Rigorous App Review Process

Before any app is made available on the App Store, it undergoes a thorough review by Apple’s App Review team. In 2024, the team reviewed over 7.7 million app submissions, rejecting more than 1.9 million for failing to meet Apple’s standards for security, reliability, and user experience. This included rejecting over 320,000 submissions that copied other apps, were found to be spam, or otherwise misled users, and 400,000 app submissions for privacy violations.

The App Review team also removed more than 37,000 apps for fraudulent activity and took action against apps that attempted to deceive users by disguising potentially risky software as seemingly innocuous apps.

Combating Discovery Fraud

Apple takes swift action against apps that attempt to cheat the system and boost their ranking on the App Store. In 2024, the company processed over 1.2 billion ratings and reviews and removed more than 143 million fraudulent ones. It also removed over 7,400 apps from App Store charts and nearly 9,500 deceptive apps from appearing in App Store search results.

Securing Payment and Credit Card Transactions

Apple is diligent in its mission to protect users from scam and payment threats. In 2024, the company prevented more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions. It also identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards and banned over 1.6 million accounts from transacting again.

Apple equips developers with access to world-class payment technologies, including Apple Pay and StoreKit, which are used by over 420,000 apps to provide users with a safe and secure way to make purchases on the App Store.

Looking Ahead

Apple’s continued investment in fraud prevention and security measures highlights its dedication to providing a safe and secure environment for users and developers alike. As threats continue to evolve, Apple remains committed to staying ahead of bad actors and maintaining the integrity of the App Store.

Additional Information

In early 2025, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported a new type of malware called “SparkCat” that uses OCR technology to read text from images for the purpose of stealing cryptocurrency. This is the first known instance of such malware making its way into Apple’s App Store. The malware operates by requesting access to users’ photo galleries when they use chat support within infected apps. It then deciphers text in photos, such as crypto wallet passwords, using Google OCR tech and sends these images to attackers. The apps identified with this malware include “WeTink,” “AnyGPT,” and the legitimate-seeming “ComeCome,” which are still available for download. Apple and Google have not yet responded to these findings.