How Apple Blocked $9 Billion in Fraud Over Last 5 Years

On July 10, 2008, Apple opened the gates to the App Store. It launched with 500 third-party apps. By September, that number was 3,000. In 2024, it stands at around 1.9 million. But scale is one thing, control is another. And in a landscape where data fraud is ubiquitous and there is widespread cynicism regarding tech companies, Apple’s privacy-first operating principle makes the brand what it is.

According to a release shared by the Cupertino-based tech behemoth, in 2024 alone, nearly 2 million app submissions were flagged as dangerous and over $2 billion in fraudulent transactions were blocked. The total blocked over the past five years comes close to over $9 billion.

The gatekeeping is surgical. Last year, Apple terminated more than 146,000 developer accounts over fraud. Another 139,000 attempts to enrol were stopped before they could even submit an app. The company's user protection mirrors this rigour. Over 711 million customer account creations were rejected in 2024, with the company deactivating nearly 129 million more. Spam, rating manipulation, and search interference were reportedly neutralised before they could degrade the system.

Outside threats meet a similar fate. In 2024, Apple identified and blocked over 10,000 malicious or pirated apps from third-party storefronts - from pornography to malware to counterfeit apps to weaponised clones. Nearly 4.6 million illicit installation attempts were shut down in the past month alone. The containment is constant, as per the release.

Apple blocked nearly 2 million risky app submissions from reaching users in 2024Apple

The App Review process

The App Review process is the unseen architecture that keeps everything in check. A whopping 150,000 submissions are reviewed weekly by a team trained in the company's internal guidelines - last year itself, 7.7 million app submissions were reviewed. Of these, 1.9 million were rejected for violations ranging from privacy to security to degraded user experience. Their review is both human and algorithmic. "Malicious actors are known to employ a variety of tactics in their attempts to circumvent App Review’s safeguards and sneak bad apps onto the App Store with the intention of defrauding users. App Review rejects any potentially malicious apps it identifies during review, and the team’s investigation into one fraudulent app often results in the takedown of several others linked to the same problematic developer," the release states.

For developers, this is a proving ground. Last year, over 220,000 developers published their first app, and each passed through the same review gauntlet. Integrity isn’t theoretical for the conglomerate - apps that attempt to access users’ data without their permission or knowledge are also prohibited from the App Store. For instance, in 2024, App Review rejected 400,000 app submissions for privacy violations.

Payments operate under the same terms - Apple Pay uses a device-specific number and unique transaction code. Card numbers are never stored on the device or Apple’s servers. In 2024, Apple identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards, and over 1.6 million accounts were banned from transacting.

More than 420,000 apps now integrate Apple Pay and StoreKit. They are not just payment tools but containment layers. "Developers leveraging StoreKit can take advantage of Apple’s in-app purchase system, which provides users with much more than a way to purchase subscriptions and digital add-ons. In-app purchase on the App Store offers users a secure and trusted environment designed to protect privacy, prevent fraud, and make managing purchases simple. With built-in tools to view, modify, or cancel subscriptions, purchase history, and support for refunds, users stay in control every step of the way. Every transaction is authenticated with a user’s Apple ID, backed by an industry-leading fraud protection engine, and handled with end-to-end encryption," the release further states.