Apple blocked $1.5 billion in fraudulent transactions on the App Store: 2021

This averted attempted theft of App Store users’ money, information, and time, as well as the distribution of almost a million potentially dangerous new programs.

 

According to Apple, customers were protected from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions on the App Store in 2021.

 

This averted attempted theft of App Store users’ money, information, and time, as well as the distribution of almost a million potentially dangerous new programs.

 

Late on Wednesday, Apple released a statement claiming that it had stopped over 1.6 million hazardous and susceptible apps and software updates from scamming users.

 

“The methods used by bad actors to commit online fraud are evolving, making their schemes increasingly difficult to detect.” As a result, Apple has continued to enhance its procedures, build new ones, and develop solutions to combat these threats,” the statement concluded.

 

Apple canceled nearly 170 million customer accounts linked to fraudulent and abusive behavior in 2021.

 

“A combination of technology and human evaluation stopped over 3.3 million stolen cards from being used to make potentially fraudulent purchases in 2021 alone,” Apple stated.

 

App Review assisted approximately 107,000 new developers in getting their products onto the store in 2021.

 

“Because apps may be unfinished or contain problems that prevent them from functioning when they are first submitted for approval, or they may need to strengthen their user-generated content management techniques,” Apple noted.

 

Over 835,000 problematic new apps and another 805,000 app upgrades were rejected or withdrawn in 2021 for a variety of reasons, including those.

 

“Any developer who believes they have been wrongly flagged for fraud may file an appeal to the App Review Board as part of the App Review process,” the tech company explained.

 

More than 34,500 apps were rejected last year for having hidden or undocumented functionality, and “upwards of 157,000 apps were rejected because they were deemed to be spam, copycats, or misleading to consumers, such as tricking them into making a purchase.”

 

Occasionally, unscrupulous developers try to get around App Review by making an app that appears one way but then changes its concept or functionality once it’s been approved.

 

For these types of breaches, nearly 155,000 apps were removed from the App Store in 2021.

 

Over 343,000 apps were also denied by the App Review team for requesting excessive amounts of user data or mishandling data that had already been gathered.

 

Throughout 2021, Apple processed over 1 billion ratings and reviews, and over 94 million reviews and over 170 million ratings were systematically discovered and prevented from publication for failing to fulfill moderation requirements.

 

“Apple found and blocked over 63,500 criminal programs on unlicensed shops over the last 12 months to protect people who download apps outside of the secure and trusted App Store,” Apple claimed.

 

Apple has rejected more than 3.3 million instances of illegally distributed software through its Enterprise Developer Program in the last month alone.