Security News > 2023 > May > Apple blocked 1.7 million apps for privacy, security issues in 2022
Apple's App Store team prevented more than $2 billion in transactions tagged as potentially fraudulent and blocked almost 1.7 million app submissions for privacy, security, and content policy violations in 2022.
The App Store team also protected Apple users from hundreds of thousands of unsafe apps last year, rejecting almost 400,000 apps for privacy violations such as trying to harvest the user's personal data without their consent or knowledge.
"In more than one case this year, App Review caught apps using malicious code with the potential to steal users' credentials from third-party services. In other instances, the App Review team identified several apps that disguised themselves as innocuous financial management platforms but had the capability to morph into another app," Apple said.
"Nearly 24,000 apps were blocked or removed from the App Store for bait-and-switch violations such as these in 2022.".
Last but not least, Apple removed over 147 million fraudulent reviews and ratings from the App Store in 2022 after processing more than 1 billion to detect the fraudulent ones.
Apple says the App Store has over 650 million average weekly users worldwide and offers a global app distribution platform for more than 36 million registered developers.
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