App Store: $2.2 billion fraud stopped Apfelpatient

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Apple has released its annual fraud prevention report for the App Store, presenting impressive figures for 2025. The company prevented fraudulent activity worth over $2.2 billion – a key statistic at a time when the store's security performance is facing increasing political and legal scrutiny.

The App Store security report comes at a critical juncture: Apple is facing pressure on several fronts to open the store to alternative payment methods and distribution channels. Just recently, the appeals court in the Epic case lifted the suspension of the requirements, and a debate about Apple's market power is also underway within the EU DMA framework. Against this backdrop, the company's newly released data provides an argument for the protective function of the curated store – and substantiates it with concrete figures from four fraud categories.

Over $11 billion in fraud in six years

Apple projects that it will prevent over $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions by 2025. Over the past six years, this figure has totaled more than $11.2 billion. According to the company, this is made possible by a combination of human review and machine learning systems that are continuously adapted to new fraud patterns.

According to Apple, the App Store remains a globally popular platform with over 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts.

Account fraud in the billions

In the area of account fraud, Apple reports having thwarted several major attacks in 2025 in which bot networks attempted to create fake accounts – mostly with the aim of manipulating ratings, spreading spam, or influencing charts. Specifically, Apple cites:

1.1 billion rejected fraudulent customer account creations
40.4 million deactivated customer accounts due to fraud or abuse
193,000 terminated developer accounts
138,000 rejected developer applications
28,000 illegitimate apps blocked on pirate storefronts (malware, gambling and pornography apps, clones of legitimate software)

Last month alone, Apple blocked 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps that were illegitimately distributed outside of the App Store or approved alternative marketplaces.

App review continues to grow with AI assistance

In 2025, the review department evaluated over 9.1 million app submissions and added 306,000 new developers to the platform. More than two million submissions were rejected – including 1.2 million new submissions and nearly 800,000 updates that did not meet the review guidelines.

Apple describes a multi-stage approach in which AI does the preliminary work: It analyzes app similarities, detects suspicious changes in updates, and identifies complex fraud patterns before human reviewers take over. Of particular interest is the growing importance of so-called bait-and-switch apps: Programs that are initially approved as harmless puzzle or calculator applications and, after approval, change their behavior toward financial fraud. Apple removed nearly 59,000 such apps in 2025.

Further reasons for rejection in numbers:

22,000 submissions with hidden or undocumented functions
371,000 submissions due to copying, spam or misleading content
443,000 complaints regarding data protection violations

The TestFlight testing environment is also part of the testing regime: Over 2.5 million submissions were excluded from distribution in 2025 due to security or fraud concerns.

Manipulation of ratings and visibility

In the area of discovery fraud, Apple processed over 1.3 billion ratings and reviews in 2025. The system classified nearly 195 million of these as fake and blocked them before they were even published. Additionally, 7,800 fraudulent apps were filtered from search results, and another 11,500 were kept out of the App Store charts. With this, Apple is targeting a financially sensitive area: manipulated ratings push legitimate developers out of visibility and undermine trust in the store's recommendation system.

Payment fraud: 5.4 million stolen credit cards blocked

The core of the report focuses on protection against payment fraud. Apple outlines three key values for 2025:

Prevented over $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions
5.4 million stolen credit cards prevented from being used
Nearly 2 million user accounts permanently excluded from purchasing

Payment processing in the App Store is handled via Apple Pay and StoreKit. Apple states that over 680,000 apps now use these payment technologies for their transactions.

Tools for families and children

In addition to its systemic safeguards, Apple points to features that give families control over app usage. These include stricter review rules for the Kids category, from which over 5,000 apps were removed in 2025 for violations. Developers have access to free tools like the Declared Age Range API and PermissionKit to implement age-appropriate content.

Screen Time plays a central role for users: app limits, time-outs, and content restrictions can be set for children. With Ask to Buy, parents can individually approve each download and in-app purchase. The "Report a Problem" function is available for issues with a purchase or an app.

Apple's argument in the midst of the reopening debate

The timing of the publication is no coincidence. While Apple filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court in the Epic case and defended its position on external payment methods, the annual fraud report serves as a key performance indicator: Apple demonstrates the capabilities of its curated platform – and the potential for harm lurking outside this system. The fact that Apple has simultaneously sided with Google in the EU proceedings concerning the AI rules of the DMA regulation fits this line of reasoning: Both companies warn that market liberalization without safeguards weakens user protection.

At the same time, the figures fit into an older dispute with Brussels, because the sideloading preparations for Brazil in iOS 26.5 show that alternative distribution channels are becoming a reality – and that Apple will have to differentiate more strongly between storefront protection and external distribution in the future.

App Store: Why the numbers are more than just marketing

For all its PR impact, it's worth looking at the substance: The sheer scale of the problem - over $11 billion in prevented fraud in six years, almost 200 million fake reviews in a single year, nearly 60,000 bait-and-switch apps - demonstrates that the threat landscape is far from abstract. The shift towards retroactively changing the functionality of seemingly harmless apps clearly shows how the attack vector is evolving. Traditional app reviews are no longer sufficient; scaling this process would be impossible without AI support.

For Apple, the report is doubly useful: verifiable proof of its own security performance – and a negotiating chip at a time when the regulatory question of opening the App Store remains unresolved. (Image: Shutterstock / TeeStocker)