Apple says it blocked $1.5B in fraudulent App Store transactions, 1.6M risky apps
Apple says that its App Store safety mechanisms stopped nearly $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions and kept 1.6 million "problematic apps" away from customers.

App Store
The report, released on Wednesday, is a followup to a previous inaugural fraud prevention analysis that the company published in 2021.
According to the two reports, Apple stopped the same amount of fraudulent transactions -- $1.5 billion -- in 2020 and 2021. It appears that Apple has successfully clamped down on problematic apps, since it blocked 1 million in 2020 and 1.6 million in 2021.
Throughout 2021, Apple said it detected and blocked more than 94 million fake reviews and 170 million ratings for "failing to meet moderation status." It also removed another 610,000 reviews that were detected through customer reports or human evaluation.

Apple's App Store anti-fraud statistics
Apple also terminated 802,000 developer accounts for fraudulent activity and rejected 153,000 over similar concerns. It also blocked 63,500 illegitimate apps on "pirate storefronts."
As a result of its human review and automated mechanisms, the iPhone maker also stopped more than 3.3 million stolen credit cares from being used to make potentially fraudulent transactions. It also banned nearly 600,000 accounts from making transactions again.
"Apple's efforts to prevent and reduce fraud on the App Store require continuous monitoring and vigilance across multiple teams," Apple wrote. "From App Review to Discovery Fraud, Apple's ongoing commitment to protect users from fraudulent app activity demonstrates once again why independent, respected security experts have said the App Store is the safest place to find and download apps."
In addition to the updated numbers, the report again highlights the kind of protections that Apple uses to protect App Store customers. That includes App Store Review, payment and credit card protections, and anti-account fraud mechanisms.
Read on AppleInsider

App Store
The report, released on Wednesday, is a followup to a previous inaugural fraud prevention analysis that the company published in 2021.
According to the two reports, Apple stopped the same amount of fraudulent transactions -- $1.5 billion -- in 2020 and 2021. It appears that Apple has successfully clamped down on problematic apps, since it blocked 1 million in 2020 and 1.6 million in 2021.
Throughout 2021, Apple said it detected and blocked more than 94 million fake reviews and 170 million ratings for "failing to meet moderation status." It also removed another 610,000 reviews that were detected through customer reports or human evaluation.

Apple's App Store anti-fraud statistics
Apple also terminated 802,000 developer accounts for fraudulent activity and rejected 153,000 over similar concerns. It also blocked 63,500 illegitimate apps on "pirate storefronts."
As a result of its human review and automated mechanisms, the iPhone maker also stopped more than 3.3 million stolen credit cares from being used to make potentially fraudulent transactions. It also banned nearly 600,000 accounts from making transactions again.
"Apple's efforts to prevent and reduce fraud on the App Store require continuous monitoring and vigilance across multiple teams," Apple wrote. "From App Review to Discovery Fraud, Apple's ongoing commitment to protect users from fraudulent app activity demonstrates once again why independent, respected security experts have said the App Store is the safest place to find and download apps."
In addition to the updated numbers, the report again highlights the kind of protections that Apple uses to protect App Store customers. That includes App Store Review, payment and credit card protections, and anti-account fraud mechanisms.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Other stores could do a worse job at this. They could also do a better job. That has to be seen. That said, Apple would have no right to meddle in a third party app store.
Any store that is demonstrably proven to be a seething mass of malware will not be a success. The Google Play Store is not an example of this by the way.
This will be a valuable consideration for consumers when they are allowed to pick the store they want to download/install content from, or opt to download the content directly.
Isn't that spectacularly obvious?
If it were that easy to get through Google's defences there would be no stopping the criminals and the whole world would know about it.
That clearly isn't the case and I have yet to meet an Android user that has come unstuck through malware.
That does not mean it does not exist, just that it isn't a seething mass.
https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-mobile-android-vs-ios-which-is-more-secure.html
Some snippets from the article.
There are plenty of sources out there as well as experiences from friends and family. My contact info got exposed several times from family members with Android devices, how do I know? Some of the recipients in the "Send to:" are friends who only exist in their Android contacts. Every Android device owner I know, has antivirus installed on their device. Why have to deal with all that, I 100% prefer a walled garden. Which is something Google is working on, they're aping the iOS ecosystem.
Systems that include hardware from Google (caged of course) and housing services from all the major carriers here. Plus health and science (including petabytes of data from CERN) and DNA banks.
All the major banking systems provide apps for Android. They would be the first to jump ship if the system was so insecure.
Android is built atop open source software. So is iOS.
Neither Google nor Android vendors that add specific features to the system, make them 100% open source. They are as closed as Apple's in that sense.
Either way, I'd prefer open source software for critical kernel operations over closed source software.
I don't know about Apple and 'antivirus' but it is probably running all kinds of AI based scanning on apps available via the Apple App Store. If they aren't running checks on shipping apps I would be very surprised.
They are probably running all kinds of checks in an effort to flag apps that behave in a questionable manner which is invisible to the user.
Not sure what Android system security has to do with a subject that is referring to how malware reaches the handset. The Google Play Store.