Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Apple Blocks App Developer

Apple said that it had banished a developer and his applications from the company’s online store after he breached the accounts of users and engaged in fraudulent purchases.

Apple gave few details about the type of fraudulent iTunes purchases it had detected. But late on Monday the company said it had removed the developer, Thuat Nguyen, and his applications from the App Store after some users complained that their accounts had been used to buy his applications without permission. According to various technology blogs, 42 of Mr. Nguyen’s applications were among the top 50 titles in the App Store’s book category.

Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said late Tuesday that about 400 users had been affected. She declined to say how their accounts had been compromised, but said that Apple’s servers, which hold credit card data on millions of customers, had not been touched.

“There was no hack into iTunes,” she said.

Ms. Muller also said that Apple had decided to bolster security on iTunes after the incident. For example, users will now have to enter their credit card security code more frequently. She also said that developers did not receive any confidential personal information from the users who downloaded their applications. She recommended that users whose accounts had been misused dispute the charges with their card companies.

There are more than 225,000 applications in the App Store, with more than five billion downloaded, according to Apple.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Apple Blocks App Developer, Citing Violations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT