Apple has banned dozens of applications from its iTunes digital store after bogus purchases from hundreds of compromised customer accounts drove the apps to the top of the popularity charts for paid electronic books.

Apple said it banned a Vietnamese developer using the name Thuat Nguyen for violations including “fraudulent purchase patterns” and removed his apps from the store. But other apps also enjoyed a sudden rush to bestseller status, suggesting that hackers were using the same techniques more broadly.

An Apple official declined to rule out a direct breach of Apple’s systems. But account log-in names and passwords could have been captured. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010