Noticia
Apple says the App Store blocked $2.2 billion in fraud in 2025
Apple reports that its App Store stopped more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2025, alongside millions of blocked accounts, submissions and reviews.
Apple says the App Store prevented more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions during 2025, as the company expanded a fraud-prevention system that combines machine learning with human review. In a May 20, 2026 update, Apple also reported that it rejected more than 2 million problematic app submissions and stopped more than 1.1 billion fraudulent customer-account creations.
The figures come from Apple’s own Trust and Safety reporting, so they describe the company’s internal enforcement work rather than an independently audited industry comparison. They are still useful as a map of the risks Apple says it is seeing across a mobile storefront: fake accounts, deceptive apps, manipulated ratings, copied software, stolen payment details and attempts to bypass official distribution channels.
Account and developer fraud remain the first gate
Apple says its systems rejected 1.1 billion fraudulent customer-account creation attempts in 2025. The company says a further 40.4 million customer accounts were deactivated for fraud and abuse. On the developer side, Apple terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and rejected more than 138,000 developer enrolments.
Those numbers point to a basic security problem that sits before an app is downloaded: the storefront has to decide which people and organisations are allowed to participate. Apple describes bot networks as a source of fake accounts used to spam users, manipulate charts or create artificial reviews. Blocking those accounts early can reduce the amount of suspicious activity that reaches search results or payment flows, although it cannot remove every risk from a platform with hundreds of millions of weekly visitors.
Apple also reported detecting and blocking 28,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts in 2025. The company says that in the last month alone it prevented 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved alternative marketplaces. Those figures are separate from App Store review decisions and underline the difference between approving software for Apple’s store and monitoring attempts to distribute modified or unauthorised copies elsewhere.
App Review is scaling for more software and more deception
Apple says its App Review team evaluated more than 9.1 million app submissions in 2025, including new apps and updates. More than 2 million submissions were rejected for failing to meet App Review Guidelines: over 1.2 million were new apps and nearly 800,000 were updates.
The company says the review process uses human expertise alongside machine learning to identify malicious patterns, compare app similarity and flag potentially problematic changes in an update. That matters because an app can look harmless when it is first submitted and change its behaviour later. Apple reported removing nearly 59,000 apps that used a bait-and-switch approach, such as presenting as a normal game or utility before being changed for financial fraud.
Apple also rejected more than 22,000 submissions containing hidden or undocumented features. Another 371,000-plus submissions were rejected for copying other apps, being spam or misleading users, while more than 443,000 were rejected for privacy violations. The figures cover submissions rather than only apps that reached users, so they should not be read as a count of confirmed infections or successful attacks.
TestFlight, Apple’s prerelease testing service, is part of the same picture. Apple says it blocked more than 2.5 million submissions from distribution through TestFlight in 2025 because of fraud or security concerns. That suggests the company is applying its screening before public release as well as at the main storefront, although the announcement does not provide a breakdown of how many distinct apps or developers those submissions represented.
Discovery and payments are separate targets
Fraud can make an app look trustworthy even when the software itself is not the immediate problem. Apple says it processed more than 1.3 billion ratings and reviews in 2025 and blocked close to 195 million fraudulent ratings and reviews. It also prevented nearly 7,800 deceptive apps from appearing in App Store search results and stopped an additional 11,500 potentially fraudulent apps from appearing on App Store charts.
These measures target the way users find software. A manipulated rating can push a questionable app ahead of legitimate alternatives, while chart or search placement can give a deceptive listing an appearance of popularity. Apple’s announcement does not claim that every review or ranking decision is perfect; it describes a detection system designed to identify suspicious patterns at scale.
Payment protection is the other major layer. Apple says more than 680,000 apps use Apple’s payment technologies, including Apple Pay or StoreKit, to sell goods and services. In 2025, the company says it stopped more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used for fraudulent purchases, prevented more than $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions and banned nearly 2 million user accounts from transacting again.
What users can do when something looks wrong
The update also points to controls that are available to users and families. Apple’s Kids category applies stricter App Review rules around age ratings and in-app advertising. Screen Time can help parents set app limits, downtime schedules and content or privacy restrictions, while Ask to Buy can require approval for a child’s app downloads and in-app purchases.
If an app download or purchase looks suspicious, Apple directs users to its Report a Problem tool. That is not a guarantee of an instant refund or removal, but it gives Apple a formal signal that can be connected to its broader review and Trust and Safety processes. Users should also treat a familiar-looking name, a high rating or a prominent chart position as evidence to check, not proof that an app is safe.
Apple’s 2025 figures show how much effort is being placed behind a major mobile marketplace, but they also make the limits clear. Automated detection can process large volumes, and human reviewers can investigate complex cases, yet users remain the final line of defence when an app asks for unusual permissions, payment details or account credentials. The company’s announcement is best read as a security report from one platform: substantial enforcement activity, useful user controls and no promise that fraud disappears once an app passes review.
Source: Apple Newsroom