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It turns out emails aren’t the only form of spam you need to worry about. There’s a not-so-new form of spam that has recently resurfaced that targets your favorite calendar apps. Calendar spam is a form of phishing in which spammy calendar events and invites are sent to you via your calendar service (like Google Calendar or iCloud calendar). These spammy calendar events usually feature phishing links that when clicked on may prompt you to divulge sensitive financial information.
Security firm Kaspersky first noted this form of spam in a blog post published on Monday, June 10. In a brief description of calendar spam, as it occurs in Google Calendar, Kaspersky also mentioned that, in addition to phishing links, calendar spam can also show up as fake polls in Google Calendar.
When it comes to protecting yourself from calendar spam, the main thing to remember is to not click on any links offered up by suspicious-looking calendar invites or events. Doing so can leave you vulnerable to phishing. Beyond that, there are a few things you can do to further protect yourself whether you use Google Calendar or iCloud calendar.
According to PCMag, the best way to block calendar spam in Google Calendar is to adjust your Event Settings.
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Step 1: Log in to your Google account if you haven’t already. Then navigate to calendar.google.com.
Step 2: At the top-right hand side of your screen, click on the Settings (gear) icon.
Step 3: From the drop-down menu that appears, select Settings.
Step 4: On the left-hand side of the screen, under General, select Event settings.
Step 5: Select the drop-down menu labeled Automatically add invitations. Then select No, only show invitations to which I have responded.
When it comes to calendar spam and iCloud calendar users, The Next Web reports that while there isn’t really a “way to block calendar invites from strangers” on iCloud calendar, there are still ways to protect yourself when you do encounter calendar spam via email invitations. First, when you see calendar spam as email iCloud invitations, take care to not click on any links, including the Accept, Decline, or Maybe buttons that come with event invites as these buttons “will send a notification back to the hacker letting them know your email inbox is real and active.”
Second, be sure to report these spammy iCloud email invites as spam. As Apple Insider notes, you can do so by clicking on Report Junk which is under the Accept, Decline, and Maybe buttons that are in the iCloud email invites. Once you do that, simply delete the calendar spam email.