App Store protected users from $9 billion in fraud over five years

The App Store has stopped more than $9 billion in fraud in a five-year period, Apple declares, flexing its security muscles at a time when App Store transactions themselves are under attack.

As a so-called walled garden, the App Store has proven itself to be quite a secure marketplace for apps and for handling in-app transactions. However, it is certainly aware that there are still attempts to rip off consumers via the digital storefront.

In a press release on May 27, Apple has boasted about how secure the App Store is, by declaring that it has prevented billions of dollars of fraud.

According to Apple's App Store fraud analysis, the App Store has blocked over $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2024. Across five years, that increases to more than $9 billion.

This also includes Apple terminating more than 146,000 developer accounts in 2024 over fraud concerns, as well as rejecting 139,000 developer enrollments.

In 2024, Apple identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards, banning 1.6 million accounts in the process.

Apple also blocked more than 711 million customer account creations in 2024, deactivating almost 129 million existing accounts. These were accounts that were at risk of being used for spamming or for manipulating ratings and reviews for apps within the store.

The efforts also included the detection and blocking of over 10,000 illegitimate apps hosted on pirate storefronts.

Defending the App Store

The App Store Review process is also credited with helping maintain standards on the App Store. Reviewing almost 150,000 app submissions per week, it managed to go through 7.7 million App Store submissions in 2024.

Of those 2024 submissions, more than 1.9 million were rejected, citing failures to meet security, reliability, and privacy standards. More than 37,000 apps were reviewed for fraudaulent activity in 2024.

For apps that hide features within code, over 43,000 apps were rejected during the review process in 2024. The same year, over 32,000 submissions were blocked for copying other apps.

Bait-and-switch maneuvers, namely malicious apps disguised as other legitimate apps, were detected and blocked over 17,000 times.

Over 1.2 billion ratings and reviews were processed in 2024, with 143 million pulled for being fraudulent. More than 7,400 apps were removed from App Store charts and close to 9,500 apps from App Store search results, again due to review fraud.

Confirmation of protection

The press release outlining Apple's App Store security prowess arrives at a time when Apple's control over the process is under attack. Be it lawsuits such as its long-running battle with Epic, or regulatory action like the EU's Digital Markets Act, Apple has repeatedly been ordered to give up some of its control.

However, Apple has repeatedly insisted that retaining the App Store model makes iPhone users feel safe. Allowing third-party app storefronts to exist, Apple believes, presents a potential danger to consumers, in part due to needing to rely on those third-party stores to keep the users safe.

Apple doesn't specify the reasoning for the promotional puff piece, which is part of its about-annual toobox. By insisting the App Store is secure, Apple therefore implies others are less so.