Month: May 2025

Apple revealed on May 27, 2025 that it prevented over $9 billion in fraudulent transactions in the last five years, including more than $2 billion in 2024 alone, highlighting its ongoing efforts to keep users safe.

Some of the other noteworthy statistics shared by Apple for 2024 are:

• Detected and blocked more than 10,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts.
• Stopped nearly 4.6 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved third-party marketplaces.
• Rejected more than 1.9 million App Store submissions for failing to meet Apple’s standards for security, reliability, privacy violations, or fraud concerns.
• Removed more than 37,000 apps for fraudulent activity.
• Rejected over 43,000 app submissions for containing hidden or undocumented features.
• Rejected over 320,000 submissions that copied other apps, were found to be spam, or otherwise misled users
• Rejected 400,000 app submissions for privacy violations.
• Removed more than 143 million fraudulent ratings and reviews from the App Store.
• Identified nearly 4.7 million stolen credit cards and banned over 1.6 million accounts from transacting again.

Read more about it here.

Google will pay Texas $1.375 Billion to settle two lawsuits over tracking users locations and storing biometric data without consent. This amount far exceeds previous fines over its location tracking practices: In November 2022, it paid $391 million to a group of 40 states. In January 2023, it paid $29.5 million to Indiana and Washington. In September 2023, it paid another $93 million to California.

Filed in 2022, the case accused Google of unlawfully tracking geolocation, incognito searches, and collecting biometric data without consent, even with Location History turned off.

The settlement represents a major privacy victory for Texas and a stark warning to companies against violating user trust.

Read more about it here.

Luxury UK retailer and department store Harrods confirmed on May 1, 2025 a cyberattack. This is the third UK retailer suffering a cyberattack, following earlier cyber-attacks on Co-operative Group (Co-op) and Marks and Spencer (M&S).

“We recently experienced attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems.” reads a statement published by the company. “Our seasoned IT security team immediately took proactive steps to keep systems safe and as a result we have restricted internet access at our sites today.”

“Currently all sites including our Knightsbridge store, H beauty stores and airport stores remain open to welcome customers. Customers can also continue to shop via harrods.com.”

As of this writing, none of the retailers affected have instructed customers to take any action.

A hacking group called Scattered Spider is believed to be behind the M&S cyberattack.

Read more about it here.