Apple says it’s investigating in-app purchasing exploit

Earlier today, news broke of a new exploit in the App Store’s in-app purchasing system that allows users to gain access to paid content, free of charge. The method does not require a jailbreak, and can be completed in a few simple steps.

As you can imagine, this has caused quite a stir in the iOS community, forcing Apple to take notice. This afternoon, the Cupertino company released the following statement…

The Loop reports:

“The security of the App Store is incredibly important to us and the developer community,” Apple representative Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “We take reports of fraudulent activity very seriously and we are investigating.”

Here’s hoping that Apple is able to shut this down quickly. TheNextWeb is reporting that the system has already been used to make over 30,000 illegal in-app purchases. Even at just $.99 a pop, that would equate to tens of thousands of dollars in lost profits for developers.

It seems like Apple has been hit by a number of App Store issues in the past few weeks. First there was the DRM bug, which caused app updates to automatically crash on launch. Then there was that malicious Find and Call app that was discovered last week.

You have to wonder, do these incidents have something to do with the fact that Apple is currently revamping its entire iTunes Store? Or is the App Store simply getting too big for its own good?

Either way, at least Apple seems to be addressing the problems quickly.