Apple says it stopped more than US$2 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions last year

Apple has announced that it stopped more than US$2 billion in fraudulent App Store transactions last year and rejected nearly 1.7 million app submissions for failing to meet the App Store’s high standards for privacy, security, and content.

The tech giant says it’s rooted out 428,000 developer accounts and 282 million customer accounts for fraud and abuse last year. In 2021, Apple terminated over 802,000 developer accounts for potentially fraudulent activity. 

In 2022, that number declined to 428,000 thanks in part to new methods and protocols that allow the App Store to prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts, according to Apple. Additionally, nearly 105 million Apple Developer Program enrollments were rejected for suspected fraudulent activities, preventing these bad actors from submitting apps to the App Store.

Apple says that, in 2022, it protected users from nearly 57,000 untrustworthy apps from illegitimate storefronts, which don’t have the same built-in privacy and security protections as the App Store. In the last 30 days alone, the tech giant says it’s blocked close to 3.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly through the Developer Enterprise Program, which allows large organizations to deploy internal apps for use by employees.

Apple also takes action against fraudulent customer accounts, and in 2022, disabled over 282 million customer accounts associated with fraudulent and abusive activity. And 198 million attempted fraudulent new accounts were blocked before they could even be created, the company adds.