Apple claims the App Store stopped more than $1.5 billion in fraud

Apple's App Review Team checks every application and update, hosted in its environment, to make sure that they comply with the rules set by the App Store for the best privacy and security of its users.

The App Review Team has managed in 2020 to help more than 180,000 developers to create new applications while at the same time almost 1 million applications and updates were rejected or removed. The rejection of apps/updates was due to hidden or undocumented features, while more than 150,000 applications were found to be spam, copycats, and misleading to users. Usually posting fake reviews and reviews is the way used by developers, in violation of App Store rules. In fact, according to Apple data, at least 250 million fake reviews were removed.

In 2020, “Apple deactivated 244 million customer accounts due to fraudulent and abusive activity,” and rejected 424 million account creations that “displayed patterns consistent with fraudulent and abusive activity.”

Read below what Apple did to stop payment and credit card fraud:

‘’Financial information and transactions are some of the most sensitive data that users share online. Apple has invested significant resources in building more secure payment technologies like Apple Pay and StoreKit, which are used by more than 900,000 apps to sell goods and services on the App Store. For example, with Apple Pay, credit card numbers are never shared with merchants — eliminating a risk factor in the payment transaction process.

In 2020 alone, the fusion of sophisticated technology and human review prevented more than 3 million stolen cards from being used to purchase stolen goods and services and banned nearly 1 million accounts from transacting again. In total, Apple protected users from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020’’.

We have read many times about malicious applications in the App Store environment, however, the company has made it clear that protecting its users is a top priority for Apple.