Apple officially bans scammy antivirus apps from iOS App Store

Fake “virus scanning” apps have plagued the iOS App Store for a while, and Apple seems to finally be banning them once and for all in updated developer guidelines it published this week, via 9to5Mac.

The updated developer guidelines, compiled by Paul Hudson over at Hacking With Swift, now includes a ban on apps that claim to “including content or services that it does not actually offer” — something that includes any iOS virus scanning apps, seeing as it wasn’t possible to scan for viruses on iOS with third party apps, since iOS’s sandboxing prevents applications from directly interacting with each other or the core of the iOS operating system.

In fairness, Apple did remove numerous fake anti-malware and anti-virus apps from the App Store earlier this year, but the new guidelines mark the first time the company has codified a ban on fake apps from its store.