Fortnite maker Epic Games turned up the heat in a US lawsuit over fees for in-app payments in the App Store, reportedly attacking Apple’s failure to identify and banish app malware.

Financial Times (FT) reported Epic Games used comments from Eric Friedman, senior engineering manager at Apple, as part of its arguments, who claimed that the App Store was inadequate in being able to defend against malicious services.

In addition, Friedman said in internal documents Apple was inappropriately equipped to block skilled attackers.

Epic Games filed further arguments to support its legal case, targeting Apple’s policy to charge a 30 per cent fee from in-app purchases explained with the need to secure the app marketplace from bad actors.

“Apple’s App Review process is cursory and provides minimal security benefits beyond the on-device security that is already provided by iOS,” the game developer stated.

A trial is scheduled to begin 3 May.