Apple blocked more than USD $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2025, while rejecting more than 2 million app submissions and stopping over 1.1 billion fraudulent account creations as it expanded enforcement across the App Store ecosystem.<\/p>\n
The figures form part of a broader effort to combat fraud, malicious software and deceptive behaviour across the App Store, which now serves more than 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts.<\/p>\n
More than USD $11.2 billion in fraudulent transactions have been prevented over the past six years.<\/p>\n
Account fraud<\/p>\n
Fraud tactics have become increasingly sophisticated, with bad actors using bot networks, fake reviews and manipulated rankings to deceive users and distort app discovery.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Apple rejected 1.1 billion attempts to create fraudulent customer accounts and deactivated another 40.4 million accounts linked to fraud and abuse.<\/p>\n
The company also terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and rejected more than 138,000 developer enrolments before they reached the platform.<\/p>\n
A further 28,000 illegitimate apps distributed through pirate storefronts were blocked. These included malware, pornography apps, gambling software and pirated versions of legitimate App Store apps.<\/p>\n
During the past month alone, Apple prevented 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed outside the App Store or approved alternative marketplaces.<\/p>\n
Review process<\/p>\n
Apple’s App Review operation processed more than 9.1 million app submissions during 2025 as app development activity increased alongside wider adoption of artificial intelligence development tools.<\/p>\n
The review process helped onboard more than 306,000 new developers during the year.<\/p>\n
More than 2 million app submissions were rejected for violating App Store Review Guidelines. This included over 1.2 million new apps and nearly 800,000 app updates.<\/p>\n
The review system combines human reviewers with machine learning tools designed to identify malicious patterns, suspicious app changes and deceptive behaviour at scale.<\/p>\n
One ongoing issue involved apps that initially appeared legitimate during review before later changing functionality to support financial fraud or other deceptive conduct.<\/p>\n
Nearly 59,000 apps were removed for engaging in these bait-and-switch tactics during 2025.<\/p>\n
Another 22,000 app submissions were rejected for containing hidden or undocumented features.<\/p>\n
More than 371,000 submissions were rejected for copying other apps, spamming users or misleading customers.<\/p>\n
A further 443,000 submissions failed review because of privacy violations.<\/p>\n
Apple also highlighted TestFlight, its prerelease testing platform for developers, as another enforcement layer.<\/p>\n
More than 2.5 million TestFlight submissions were blocked from distribution because of fraud or security concerns.<\/p>\n
Discovery controls<\/p>\n
Ratings and reviews remain central to how users discover apps on the platform, making manipulation of those systems a major focus for Trust and Safety teams.<\/p>\n
More than 1.3 billion ratings and reviews were processed during 2025.<\/p>\n
Using automated detection systems and human moderation, Apple blocked close to 195 million fraudulent ratings and reviews before they appeared publicly on the App Store.<\/p>\n
Nearly 7,800 deceptive apps were also prevented from appearing in App Store search results, while another 11,500 apps were blocked from appearing on App Store charts.<\/p>\n
The company uses artificial intelligence models, moderation systems and internal dashboards to identify suspicious behaviour and emerging fraud tactics across the platform.<\/p>\n
Payment fraud<\/p>\n
More than 680,000 apps now use Apple’s payment infrastructure to process purchases and subscriptions.<\/p>\n
Fraud systems prevented more than USD $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions during 2025.<\/p>\n
More than 5.4 million stolen credit cards were stopped from being used for fraudulent purchases, while nearly 2 million user accounts were banned from carrying out further transactions.<\/p>\n
Detection systems analyse activity across customer accounts, devices and payment methods to identify suspicious behaviour and evolving fraud patterns.<\/p>\n
Family controls<\/p>\n
Apple also highlighted measures aimed at children and family protections across the App Store.<\/p>\n
Apps listed in the Kids category are subject to stricter review requirements covering age ratings and advertising restrictions.<\/p>\n
More than 5,000 apps were rejected from appearing in the Kids category during 2025 because they failed to comply with those rules.<\/p>\n
The company also pointed to parental control tools including Screen Time and Ask to Buy, which allow parents to approve downloads and purchases made on children’s devices.<\/p>\n
Users can also report suspicious apps, downloads and purchases through Apple’s Report a Problem feature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple blocked more than USD $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2025, while rejecting more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15120,670,25313,2087,182140,4287,103738,211283,206497,28536,2686,138,46762,85,46,27949,175999,125],"class_list":["post-452395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-app-store","tag-apple","tag-apple-pay","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-credit-card-fraud","tag-cybersecurity","tag-data-encryption","tag-developers-devs","tag-device-security","tag-digital-economy","tag-ecommerce","tag-encryption","tag-fraud-prevention","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-machine-learning-ml","tag-payment-technologies","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}