Apple Blocked $2.2 Billion in Fraudulent App Store Transactions in 2025

Apple blocked more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2025, rejecting more than two million problematic app submissions and stopping large-scale fraudulent account activity in the process.



The scale of fraud attempts targeting Apple's platforms remains enormous. Last year alone, the company deactivated 40.4 million customer accounts for fraud and abuse. On the payments side, Apple intercepted 5.4 million stolen credit cards and permanently banned nearly 2 million user accounts from making future transactions. Over the past six years, the company says it has prevented more than $11.2 billion in total financial fraud.



On the developer side, App Review evaluated more than 9.1 million submissions in 2025. Apple rejected more than 1.2 million new apps and nearly 800,000 app updates for failing to adhere to App Store Review Guidelines. That included nearly 59,000 apps removed for bait-and-switch behavior, a tactic that recently led to the removal of the Freecash app. Another 443,000 submissions were blocked for privacy violations, while 22,000 attempted to hide undocumented features. Apple also terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns, an enforcement measure that AI startup Ex-Human is currently challenging in federal court.



Fake reviews continue to be a major issue for app discovery. Out of the 1.3 billion ratings and reviews Apple processed last year, the company filtered out nearly 195 million fraudulent entries. Apple also blocked nearly 7,800 deceptive apps from appearing in App Store search results and prevented another 11,500 apps from charting artificially to protect legitimate developers.



Outside the official storefront, Apple says it detected and blocked 28,000 illegitimate apps distributed through pirate marketplaces. In just the past month, the company also prevented 2.9 million attempts to install or launch software distributed outside the App Store or approved alternative marketplaces. To manage the growing volume of submissions and fraud attempts, Apple says it increasingly relies on machine learning to identify suspicious code, detect complex malicious patterns, and flag potentially problematic apps for review.