Apple often talks about their App Store being a highly secure platform for mobile applications for their customers. In a recent blog post, the company claims to have prevented nearly $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020, protecting customers from theft of their money, information, and time.
Some of the key protections that Apple made possible via the App Store were:
- Nearly 1 million problematic (unfinished or not functioning properly) new apps, and an additional nearly 1 million app updates, were rejected or removed.
- 48,000 apps rejected by App Review team for containing hidden or undocumented features, and more than 150,000 spam, copycats apps were rejected.
- 95,000 apps were removed from the App Store for fraudulent violations such as fundamentally changing how the app works after review.
- 215,000 apps rejected by App Review team for user data privacy violations.
- Over 250 million ratings and reviews removed for not meeting moderation standards.
- 470,000 developer accounts terminated in 2020 and 205,000 developer enrollments rejected over fraud concerns.
- 110,000 illegitimate apps blocked on pirate storefronts.
- 3.2 million instances of apps blocked that were distributed illicitly through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
- 244 million customer accounts deactivated due to fraudulent and abusive activity.
- Rejected 424 million attempted account creations after they displayed patterns consistent with fraudulent and abusive activity.
- Prevented more than 3 million stolen cards from being used to purchase stolen goods and services.
In related news, the timing of this blog post is interesting as the Apple vs. Epic Games lawsuit is undergoing trial at the moment. Security for the App Store is a major reason that Apple uses to justify taking their 30% cut from developers, and Epic Games is contesting that in court.