Apple App Store blocked $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions using AI and human reviewers in 2025

Apple Provides Update on App Store, Highlights Key 2025 Safety Stats

Apple today shared stats that paint the App Store as a safe and trusted place for both customers and developers, even though the reality is that fraudulent or deceptive apps continue to make it past Apple's review process from time to time. In 2025, Apple said its App Review team evaluated more than 9.1 million App Store submissions, with a mix of human review and AI. The company rejected over two million of these submissions, including over 1.2 million new apps and nearly 800,000 pending app updates, for failing to adhere to the App Store's Review Guidelines. As bad actors continue to evolve their methods, Apple said it continuously improves its multilayered defenses, leveraging a combination of human review and advanced machine learning in an attempt to detect and prevent malicious activity. "By utilizing AI to rapidly identify complex malicious patterns, analyze app similarity, and flag potentially problematic changes in app updates, Apple's systems help human reviewers focus their expertise where it matters most," said Apple. "This not only improves the customer experience by ensuring a high-quality, curated storefront, it also helps legitimate developers get their great apps and updates to users faster." Apple added that it terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns and prevented over $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2025. In 2025, Apple processed over 1.3 billion App Store reviews and ratings. Using a mix of human review and AI, the company said it identified and blocked close to 195 million fraudulent reviews and ratings from ever appearing. "Apple's Trust and Safety teams integrate AI throughout the entire moderation process to detect spam, offensive content, and inauthentic reviews at scale," the company explained. "Additionally, AI-powered dashboards and rapid data analysis tools accelerate the discovery of new fraud vectors, enabling Apple's teams to react quickly to deceptive activity and protect the integrity of the platform." Apple's press release contains many more stats that highlight the company's efforts to ensure the App Store is secure, even if they are not perfect.

AppleInsider.com

The App Store is seeing more submissions all the time. Malicious app submissions are also increasing in number. Artificial intelligence has helped Apple's human-based App Store Review process prevent over $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2025. It also rejected more harmful apps than ever before. Policing the App Store for malware is a task for the App Store Review team, which is getting tougher over time thanks to AI-assisted app development. However, artificial intelligence is also helping Apple combat harmful versions of apps. In a review of the 2025 submissions, Apple claims it had prevented over $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions. This brings the total over the last six years to more than $11.2 billion. It also managed to reject over 2 million app submissions that could've been malicious and harmful to iPhone and Mac users. The Trust and Safety Teams also stopped multiple large-scale attempts to create fraudulent accounts. Approximately 1.1 billion fraudulent customer account creations were detected and blocked, while 40.4 million customer accounts were deactivated over fraud and abuse. Approximately 193,000 developer accounts were also deactivated in 2025 over fraud concerns. Another 138,000 developer enrollments were rejected. Apple's security effort also extends beyond the App Store. It detected and blocked 28,000 illegitimate apps from pirate storefronts in 2025. This included not only pirated versions of legitimate App Store apps, but also gambling apps, adult content, and malware. The continued growth of app submissions meant Apple had to develop its AI tools to cope. While human reviewers have worked with machine learning tools to handle the task, Apple has continued to invest more to improve those tools. The AI elements are used to flag complex malicious patterns, analyze similar apps, and to determine potential issues in app updates. This includes tactics such as apps that were approved but then modified post-review to facilitate financial fraud. Almost 59,000 apps were removed for bait-and-switch actions like that. Over 22,000 submissions were also rejected for having hidden and undocumented features, 443,000 were rejected for privacy violations, and over 371,000 for copying other apps. Another 2.5 million submissions were blocked from TestFlight for fraud and security issues.

The App Store stopped a boatload of "potentially fraudulent transactions" in 2025

Apple has announced, that by "leveraging human review and artificial intelligence to combat malicious activity", in 2025 they rejected over 2 million problematic app submissions, and blocked more than 1.1 billion fraudulent account creations. The App Store wants to continuously improve its multi-layered defences, leveraging a combination of human review and machine learning technologies to detect and stop malicious activity. And it seems to be worth it. In 2025, Apple prevented over $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, adding to a total of more than $11.2 billion over the past six years. Apple also took a number of actions to block bad actors from distributing malicious software by rejecting over 2 million problematic app submissions in 2025. You can read the whole report right here. According to Apple themselves, the App Store is "a global destination that welcomes over 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts". Have you had problems while using the App Store? Leave us a comment below.