Post Content Apple says its AI-powered App Store security systems blocked more than $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2025 while cracking down on fake accounts, scam apps, and malicious developers.(Image: Apple)
Apple, on Thursday, May 21, said it stopped more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions on the App Store in 2025. The announcement comes as the company continues to expand its security and fraud prevention systems across its digital marketplace.
According to the company, the App Store’s fraud detection systems, which combine human moderation with artificial intelligence and machine learning, have now prevented more than $11.2 billion in fraudulent transactions over the past six years.
Apple also revealed that it rejected over two million problematic app submissions in 2025 alone, including apps that violated privacy rules, copied other apps, contained hidden features, or attempted financial scams after approval.
Apple blocked over a billion fake account attempts
The Cupertino-based tech giant said that fraudulent account creation remains one of the biggest threats facing digital platforms. In 2025, the company rejected more than 1.1 billion attempts to create fake customer accounts and deactivated another 40.4 million accounts linked to fraud or abuse.
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The company also cracked down on malicious developers, terminating around 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and rejecting more than 138,000 developer enrolment attempts before they could access the platform.
These measures help legitimate developers avoid competing against fake or spam-driven apps designed to manipulate rankings, reviews, or downloads.
AI plays a growing role in App Store moderation
The rapid growth of AI-powered app development tools has significantly increased the number of app submissions Apple receives. In 2025, the App Review team processed more than 9.1 million submissions while helping over 306,000 new developers join the platform.
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The iPhone-maker revealed that AI now plays a major role in identifying suspicious behaviour, hidden features, app cloning, and misleading updates before apps reach users. Apple claims these AI systems help reviewers focus on higher-risk submissions while speeding up approvals for legitimate developers.
Among the rejected submissions were over 443,000 apps for privacy violations, more than 371,000 spam or copycat apps, and over 22,000 apps containing hidden or undocumented features.
It also removed nearly 59,000 apps for “bait-and-switch” tactics, where apps initially presented themselves as harmless utilities or games before later introducing fraudulent behaviour through updates.
Fake reviews and payment fraud remain major targets
Apple said that it processed over 1.3 billion App Store ratings and reviews in 2025, blocking nearly 195 million fake or fraudulent reviews before they became visible to users.
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Apple also stopped nearly 7,800 deceptive apps from appearing in search results and prevented another 11,500 apps from appearing on App Store charts.
On the payments front, Apple said it prevented over 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used for fraudulent purchases and banned nearly 2 million user accounts from making additional transactions.
The company added that more than 680,000 apps now use Apple’s payment systems, including Apple Pay and StoreKit, for secure digital purchases.
Apple also highlighted family-focused safety features across the App Store, including stricter moderation rules for apps in the Kids category. The company says it rejected more than 5,000 apps from the category in 2025 for violating child safety and advertising guidelines.
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