Apple Rejected 2 Million App Store Submissions in 2025 for Security and Fraud Prevention

Apple rejected over 2 million applications from entering the App Store in 2025 and blocked over 1.1 million fraudulent accounts from being created. These actions, a result of AI use combined with human review, led to the prevention of over $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, the company says. Over the past six years, the company has prevented over $11 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions. “Apple’s protections not only prevent harm to users, but also allow developers to thrive in a global marketplace. Today, the App Store is a global destination that welcomes over 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts,” Apple said. In addition to preventing 1.1 million fraudulent account creations, the company last year deactivated 40.4 million accounts for fraud and abuse. The company also rejected over 138,000 developer enrollments in 2025, and terminated 193,000 developer accounts suspected of fraudulent activities. Apple also took action against illicit application distribution channels, detecting and blocking 28,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts that distributed malware, pirated apps, and other nefarious software. “In the last month alone, Apple has also prevented 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved alternative app marketplaces,” the company says. Overall, the App Store received and reviewed over 9.1 million application submissions. Apple rejected over 1.2 million new apps and roughly 800,000 updates, and approved 306,000 new developers to the platform. The use of AI has allowed the company to detect complex malicious patterns and flag potentially fraudulent apps faster. These included apps engaging in bait-and-switch maneuvers, apps and updates containing hidden or undocumented features, clones, spam apps, and submissions violating Apple’s policies. Of the 1.3 billion ratings and reviews processed last year, close to 195 million were identified and blocked as being fraudulent. “Last year, Apple prevented more than $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions, stopped more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used to make fraudulent purchases, and banned nearly 2 million user accounts from transacting again,” the company says. Related: Apple Patches Dozens of Vulnerabilities in macOS, iOS Related: Apple Patches iOS Flaw Allowing Recovery of Deleted Chats Related: Dozens of Malicious Crypto Apps Land in Apple App Store Related: Apple Intelligence AI Guardrails Bypassed in New Attack WRITTEN BY Ionut Arghire Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek. More from Ionut Arghire Microsoft Rolls Out Mitigations for ‘YellowKey’ BitLocker Bypass Over 320 NPM Packages Hit by Fresh Mini Shai-Hulud Supply Chain Attack GitHub Confirms Hack Impacting 3,800 Internal Repositories Verizon DBIR 2026: Vulnerability Exploitation Overtakes Credential Theft as Top Breach Vector Unpatched ChromaDB Vulnerability Can Lead to Server Takeover B1ack’s Stash Marketplace Gives Away 4.6 Million Stolen Credit Cards 201 Arrested in Crackdown on Cybercrime in Middle East, North Africa PoC Released for DirtyDecrypt Linux Kernel Vulnerability Latest News Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerability in Secure Workload Ocean Emerges From Stealth With $28M for Agentic Email Security Platform Drupal Patches Highly Critical Vulnerability Exposing Websites to Hacking Socket Raises $60 Million at $1 Billion Valuation Microsoft Patches Exploited UnDefend and RedSun Defender Zero-Days Google’s Surge in Chrome Vulnerability Discoveries Likely Driven by AI Supply Chain Security Crisis: Too Many Vulnerabilities, Too Little Visibility Quantum Bridge Raises $8 Million for Quantum-Safe Key Distribution Solution Trending Virtual Event: Threat Detection And Incident Response Summit May 20, 2026 Delve into big-picture strategies to reduce attack surfaces, improve patch management, conduct post-incident forensics, and tools and tricks needed in a modern organization. Register Webinar: Third-Party Risk In Practice June 4, 2026 Organizations are investing heavily in third-party risk management, but breaches, delays, and blind spots continue to persist. Join this live webinar as we examine the gap between how organizations think their third-party risk programs are performing and what’s actually happening in practice. Register People on the Move Joe Chen has become Chief Technology Officer at Trellix. Usercentrics has named Pawan Hegde as COO and Elena Ignatova as CPTO. SecureAuth has named Mark van Oppen as Chief Revenue Officer. More People On The Move Expert Insights Caught Off Guard: Securing AI After It Hits Production As enterprises rush AI projects into production, security teams are increasingly being forced into reactive mode. (Joshua Goldfarb) Cyber Resilience Is The New Business Continuity Plan The organizations best prepared to face disruption are those that align security, continuity and risk management around what the business cannot afford to lose. (Steve Durbin) Enhancing Data Center Security Without Sacrificing Performance For AI data centers, where the stakes are the highest and performance constraints are the tightest, security and performance are no longer a zero-sum game. (Nadir Izrael) Is The SOC Obsolete, And We Just Haven’t Admitted It Yet? Many AI-first enterprises have already embraced sovereign architectures for general AI initiatives; cybersecurity—and the SOC—should be next. (Danelle Au) The Mythos Moment: Enterprises Must Fight Agents With Agents Only with the right platform and an agentic, AI-driven defense, will enterprises be able to protect themselves in the agentic era. (Etay Maor) Flipboard Reddit Whatsapp Email