Apple blocked more than a billion fake App Store accounts last year, the company has said, as automated systems try and take over the internet.
In 2025, Apple blocked 1.1 billion fraudulent accounts, stopped 5.4 million stolen credit cards and rejected two million app submissions.
It said that “bad actors have evolved their methods to defraud users, leveraging tactics such as implementing bot networks to create fake accounts, spam users, manipulate charts, or generate fake reviews”. It is just one of the many ways that bots and automated systems are being used to undermine the security of much of the internet.
Apple also suggested that new AI tools for coding have meant that app submissions have “surged”, because they have made developing and submitting new software easier. In all, it reviewed more than 9.1 million apps and rejected more than two million of them, it said.
The company is increasingly using automated systems to spot such problem apps and block them, it said. “By utilising AI to rapidly identify complex malicious patterns, analyse app similarity, and flag potentially problematic changes in app updates, Apple’s systems help human reviewers focus their expertise where it matters most,” Apple said.
It uses similar systems to spot fake ratings and reviews, which can be used to falsely drive up the apparent popularity of apps and mean they are more likely to be downloaded.
Apple released the figures as part of its App Store fraud prevention report. The company has repeatedly pointed to security as one of the key reasons for requiring that it has sole control over what apps are installed onto iPhones – which some developers and regulators have argued against, saying that it is unfair.
