Apple's Resilience Against Cyber Threats: Preventing Fraudulent Apps and Transactions

In 2022, Apple effectively prevented 428,000 fraudulent app submissions on its App Store, showcasing its resilience against cyber threats. The company's strong security measures successfully blocked these deceitful attempts and promptly terminated the accounts of the deceptive developers involved.

According to Apple's latest security update, the number of fraudulent apps in 2022 was even lower than in 2021 when 802,000 developer accounts were deleted for potential fraud. This reduction was attributed to the implementation of new methods and protocols by Apple, enabling the App Store to proactively prevent the creation of potentially fraudulent accounts.

Apple Blocked $2.09 Billion In Fraudulent Transactions

In addition to preventing the launch of new fraudulent apps, Apple reported blocking suspicious transactions worth $2.09 billion on existing apps within the platform.

“As the digital economy evolves, more and more people are turning to online payments to purchase goods and services. Apple has made tremendous investments in creating secure payment technologies like Apple Pay and StoreKit to protect people’s financial information. These technologies are used by nearly 943,000 apps to sell goods and services on the App Store.”

“Last year, Apple blocked nearly 3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used to make fraudulent purchases and banned 714,000 accounts from transacting again. In total, Apple blocked $2.09 billion in fraudulent transactions on the App Store in 2022,” Apple said.

APPLE’S ACTIONS AGAINST UNTRUSTWORTHY APPS

•Apple safeguarded users against approximately 57,000 dubious apps from unauthorized sources lacking the robust privacy and security safeguards found in the App Store. These illegitimate marketplaces distribute harmful software that can mimic or modify popular apps without the developers' consent.

•Furthermore, in the past 30 days alone, Apple thwarted nearly 3.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly through the Developer Enterprise Program, designed for internal app deployment within large organizations.

•Apple also took action against fraudulent customer accounts, disabling over 282 million associated with fraudulent and abusive activities in 2022. Additionally, the company prevented the creation of 198 million new fraudulent accounts before they could even be established.

The company reported rejecting almost 1.7 million app submissions from the App Store for various reasons, such as fraud and privacy concerns.

“In more than one case this year, App Review caught apps using malicious code with the potential to steal users’ credentials from third-party services. In other instances, the App Review team identified several apps that disguised themselves as innocuous financial management platforms but had the capability to morph into another app. Nearly 24,000 apps were blocked or removed from the App Store for bait-and-switch violations such as these in 2022.”

“There are other reasons an app can be rejected for fraud. For example, over 153,000 app submissions rejected from the App Store last year were found to be spam, copycats, or misleading, and nearly 29,000 submissions were rejected for containing hidden or undocumented features. Sometimes apps try to obtain users’ personal data without their knowledge or consent. In 2022, upward of 400,000 app submissions were rejected for privacy violations,” the company disclosed.

When a developer account is terminated due to fraudulent and abusive behavior, any unapproved apps associated with that account are automatically removed and prevented from being submitted to the App Store. In 2022, the App Review team proactively acted to prevent nearly 84,000 potentially fraudulent apps from reaching users on the App Store.