In 2021, Apple prevented more than 3.3 Million stolen credit cards from making transactions in the Apple App store, and blocked around 600,000 accounts from making transactions again. The company also mentioned that in 2021 it restricted more than 1.6 Million harmful and malicious applications and application updates from the app store. These risky apps either contained vulnerabilities that affected functioning, or restricted upgrades.
The numbers, according to Apple, comprised over 8,35,000 problematic new applications, out of which more than 34,000 apps contained undocumented or hidden features; 1,57,000 were mentioned as spam, misleading, or copycat apps; and more than 3,40,000 apps were violating privacy. Besides this, more than 805,000 applications were restricted or blocked from the Apple store, as per the company's App Review Process. The measures meanwhile helped over 107,000 new developers launch applications in the App Store, Apple also blocked over 802,000 fake developer accounts and protected 153,000 developer applications related to scam concerns.
In accordance with Apple's Developer Code of Conduct, developers have to be correct and truthful when showing themselves and their applications on the App Store. The code emphasizes that app developers will be removed from the Developer Program for engaging in malicious or harmful behaviour repeatedly. Customer accounts were also blocked for participating in scams and manipulating activities: amounting to 170 Million accounts.
Besides this, more than 118 million account sign-up attempts were rejected due to suspicious potential fraud and manipulative activities. "Apple also says it took action against fraudulent ratings and reviews in the App Store. Out of over 1 billion such entries processed in 2021, more than 94 million reviews and 170 million ratings were blocked from being published. The company also removed an additional 610,000 reviews," reports the Security Week.
