Apple Blocks $7 Billion in Fraudulent App Store Transactions

<p>From 2020 through 2023&comma; Apple says it prevented a combined total of over &dollar;7 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions&comma; including more than &dollar;1&period;8 billion in 2023 alone&period; In the same period&comma; Apple blocked over 14 million stolen credit cards and more than 3&period;3 million accounts from transacting again&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As digital threats have evolved in scope and complexity over the years&comma; Apple has expanded its antifraud initiatives to address these challenges and help protect its users&period; Every day&comma; teams across Apple monitor and investigate fraudulent activity on the App Store&comma; and utilize sophisticated tools and technologies to weed out bad actors and help strengthen the App Store ecosystem&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Apple found that in 2023&comma; it rejected more than 1&period;7 million app submissions for failing to meet the App Store’s stringent standards for privacy&comma; security&comma; and content&period; In addition&comma; Apple’s persistent efforts to stop and reduce fraud on the App Store resulted in the termination of nearly 374 million developer and customer accounts&comma; and removal of close to 152 million ratings and reviews over fraud concerns&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Apple has developed robust systems to root out fraudulent customer and developer accounts quickly and effectively to prevent such actors from defrauding users&period; In 2023&comma; Apple terminated close to 118&comma;000 developer accounts&comma; a decrease from 428&comma;000 terminations from the prior year&comma; thanks to continued improvements to prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts in the first place&period; In addition&comma; more than 91&comma;000 developer enrollments were rejected for fraud concerns and prevented from submitting problematic apps to the App Store&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Harmful activity can also occur at the customer account level&comma; and Apple takes a number of measures to protect users and developers from ill-intended parties&period; These accounts tend to be bots that are created for the purposes of spamming or manipulating ratings and reviews&comma; charts&comma; and search results&comma; which threaten the integrity of the App Store and its users and developers&period; In 2023&comma; Apple blocked over 153 million fraudulent customer account creations and deactivated nearly 374 million accounts for fraud and abuse&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Apple’s commitment to trust and safety extends beyond the App Store&comma; having detected and blocked more than 47&comma;000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts from reaching users over the last 12 months&period; Blocking apps from pirate storefronts is also beneficial to developers&comma; whose apps could be modified or used to disguise malicious software for distribution on these platforms&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Additionally&comma; in the last month&comma; Apple stopped nearly 3&period;8 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly through the Developer Enterprise Program&comma; which allows large organizations to deploy internal apps for use by employees&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Apple’s App Review team of over 500 experts evaluates every single app submission — from developers around the world — before any app ever reaches users&period; On average&comma; the team reviews approximately 132&comma;500 apps a week&comma; and in 2023&comma; reviewed nearly 6&period;9 million app submissions while helping more than 192&comma;000 developers publish their first app onto the App Store&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>App Review conducts a number of checks before any app makes its way onto the store&comma; and leverages automated processes and human review to detect and take action on apps with the potential to harm or defraud users&period; In 2023&comma; more than 1&period;7 million app submissions were rejected for various reasons&comma; including privacy violations and fraudulent activity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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