Today, Apple published a report to its Newsroom that goes into detail on how the guidelines and controls of the platform help to protect users, highlighting how it helped to prevent fraud and abuse in the store throughout 2022.
The key figures that Apple shared today are that it has prevented over $2 billion worth of potentially fraudulent transactions, and rejected almost 1.7 billion app submissions for failing to meet the standards for privacy, security, and content that are set for the App Store.
The full review goes into detail over four sections of the App Store process, which are Account Fraud, App Review, Ratings & Reviews, and Payment & Credit Card Fraud. Account Fraud is where Apple has terminated developer accounts for potentially fraudulent activity, and the number has declined when compared to 2021 by almost 50% thanks to Apple preventing the creation of these accounts to begin with.
Apple also goes into detail on how it protected users by preventing almost 57,000 apps from illegitimate storefronts, which may be a subtle attack on how it will be having to bake in sideloading of apps in iOS 17 onwards.
Moving on to App Review, Apple said it automated checks incorporated into Xcode. Also, its App Store Connect ran automated checks to ensure that any apps uploaded to the platform use authorized technologies and meet the minimum requirements They then go to the App Review team for manual review, who look at over 100,000 submissions per week.
Apple also highlights how App Review rejected apps using malicious code with the potential to steal users" credentials from third-party services, as well as some that disguised themselves as financial management platforms but were capable of morphing into another app in an apparent bait-and-switch violation.
Ratings and reviews cover the removal of fraudulent ratings and reviews from the platform, either from inauthentic users or from bot accounts aiming to mislead or game the system to get more downloads for an app.
Apple also goes into payments and credit card fraud on the platform, reporting that almost 943,000 apps are making use of its secure payment technologies such as Apple Pay and StoreKit. Furthermore, it blocked nearly 3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used and banned 714,000 accounts from transacting again, racking up a value of $2.09 billion worth of transactions on the App Store that it blocked.
Finally, Apple concludes the article with some insight as to how it evolves its strategy against bad actors. Without giving away too much information it states that it uses various sources including AppleCare calls to improve its strategy.