“Bad actors’ methods of online fraud continue to evolve, making their schemes more difficult to detect.That is why Apple has continued to improve its processes, develop new ones, and develop solutions to combat these threats “it was added.
According to the company, Apple protected customers from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions in 2021.This prevented attempted theft of App Store users’ money, information, and time, as well as the distribution of nearly a million problematic new apps.Apple announced late Wednesday that it had prevented over 1.6 million risky and vulnerable apps and app updates from defrauding users.
“Bad actors’ methods of online fraud continue to evolve, making their schemes more difficult to detect.”That is why Apple has continued to improve its processes, develop new ones, and engineer solutions to combat these threats,” the company added.
Apple deactivated over 170 million customer accounts associated with fraudulent and abusive behaviour in 2021.
“In 2021 alone, a combination of technology and human review prevented more than 3.3 million stolen cards from being used to make potentially fraudulent purchases, and nearly 600,000 accounts from transacting again,” Apple stated.
App Review assisted over 107,000 new developers in getting their apps onto the store in 2021.
“This process can be iterative, because apps may be unfinished or contain bugs that impede functionality when they are first submitted for approval, or they may need to improve its moderation mechanisms for user-generated content,” Apple explained.
Over 835,000 problematic new apps and an additional 805,000 app updates were rejected or removed in 2021 for similar reasons.
“Any developer who believes they have been incorrectly flagged for fraud may file an appeal to the App Review Board as part of the App Review process,” the tech company explained.
The App Review team rejected over 34,500 apps last year for having hidden or undocumented features, and “upwards of 157,000 apps were rejected because they were found to be spam, copycats, or misleading to users, such as manipulating them into making a purchase.”
Nefarious developers may attempt to avoid App Review by creating an app that appears one way, only to change its concept or functionality once approved.
Over 155,000 apps were removed from the App Store for similar violations in 2021.
The App Review team also rejected over 343,000 apps for requesting too much user data or mishandling data that had already been collected.
Apple detected and blocked over 94 million reviews and over 170 million ratings from publication for failing to meet moderation standards, with over 1 billion ratings and reviews processed throughout 2021.
“In an effort to protect users who download apps outside of the safe and trusted App Store, Apple discovered and blocked over 63,500 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts over the last 12 months,” the company said.
Apple has blocked over 3.3 million instances of illegally distributed apps through its Enterprise Developer Program in the last month alone.
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