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Spam Calendar Invites

In just the past week, I have started getting spam in my calendar.


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Now, I have looked all over the net and most of the previous discussions and how-tos involve preventing calendar items from getting passed from Mail.app to Calendar.app. I do not believe this is happening. I have Mail.app set to not send to Calendar.app. I am not seeing any spam mail in the Inbox of Junk box. It's just coming straight to the Calendar.app.


When my wife sends a calendar event to me, I do not get any sort of email, just the invite in the Inbox of the Calendar.app. So that's how these are coming in. Probably straight from a spammer using a Mac on iCloud.


How do I block these? There doesn't seem to be any way to do so.


Thanks

Andy

MacOS Sierra, Macbook Air Mid 2012, iPhone 6s, iOS 10

Posted on Nov 2, 2016 6:46 AM

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Posted on Nov 2, 2016 8:09 AM

I do not see a way to delete it. Accept. Maybe. Decline. No delete. More info on the does not have a delete button, nor does pressing delete key on keyboard remove it.


Also, I already have two step. It's just someone spamming outgoing invitations to a list of people. Not unauthorized access of my account.

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Nov 2, 2016 8:09 AM in response to zinacef

I do not see a way to delete it. Accept. Maybe. Decline. No delete. More info on the does not have a delete button, nor does pressing delete key on keyboard remove it.


Also, I already have two step. It's just someone spamming outgoing invitations to a list of people. Not unauthorized access of my account.

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Nov 2, 2016 11:51 AM in response to zinacef

Came across this while digging around.


You can tell iCloud not to send Calendar Invites straight to the app but to instead send them to you as email. This will allow you to filter the invites through normal spam/junk filtering in your Mail client.


Here's how:

1) Go to iCloud.com and log in

2) Go to the Calendar

3) Click the little Gear icon in the lower left corner

4) Select "Preference" from the pop up menu.

5) Choose the Advanced Tab across the top of the resulting window

6) At the bottom, under Invitations, choose "Email to ..."


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Now all your calendar invites will go to email so you can choose whether or not to send them to Calendar.app


Personally, I'd rather see Apple include some method for dealing with spam in the Calander, like the option I mentioned earlier: Check Box: Ignore invites from people not in my Contacts.


But, this will work for now.

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Nov 2, 2016 8:49 AM in response to zinacef

Yes, but that sends a message back to the sender indicating that I declined it. Now he knows my email is legit and the attacks will continue and increase. I was hoping there was a way to delete it without alerting the sender, such a simple "delete" or "ignore" or better yet, "block."


Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my original post.


I know it can be removed. What I want to do is PREVENT my Calendar app from even receiving these items. For example, a check box that says "Receive only events from known contacts" or some such thing.


Seems odd that Apple would leave this wide open back door of annoyance.

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Nov 2, 2016 3:42 PM in response to Andrew Mcvinnie

Dear Andrew,


I fully agree with the suggestions you made and I´m glad you made them, because I´m getting more and more concerned. Still it remains a workaround as it just re-routes the spam to your e-mail. Best help would be as you said if Apple added the option to delete without notifying the sender. Best help until than would be changing the icloud.com-email-address, I guess. Would you agree?


I´m being harressed as well since one or two weeks. As a workaround I created a "junk" calendar to at least hide the invites, but now I keep getting this note everytime I open ical, that´s why I´m getting concerned it could be more than spam:


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Translation: "server announces error.

The access to.....in "junk" in account....is prohibited.

Answer of server: "403" to process CalDav....

ignore/try again/use serverversion"


I clicked "ignore" for every invite I´m hiding in "junk", didn´t dare to click "use serverversion" even though I´m being curious.


Can you ease my concern?


Susu

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Nov 2, 2016 4:49 PM in response to Andrew Mcvinnie

I tend to agree with you since it´s all icloud-e-mail-addresses being invited. I wouldn´t be suprised if they used a random generator.


But did you see my workaround I bumped into?:


- create new calendar (call it "spam" i.e.)

- assign spam invite to that new calendar

- erase that spam calendar and there you are given the two options:

- erase + notify

- erase without notification !!!

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Nov 13, 2016 8:56 PM in response to Andrew Mcvinnie

Hi ,

Open calendar its preferences & click on account > delegation but my screen shot says > this server doesn't supports .

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I am taking an example for google Cal Dav

Clicked on Google Cal Dav > delegation the permissions are set to read only , in your case verify it is read and write thats why spammer has permission to read & write and he is writing & sending spam calendar invitations .

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click on edit in the above screen shot , a window appears , if any thing is found select it and click on minus sign .

The right permission is read only .

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Click on done .

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Nov 16, 2016 5:21 PM in response to Andrew Mcvinnie

Posted in another thread about this and am posting here too because I am positively fuming.


What an unbelievably stupid loophole/exploit to exist. I received one on my calendar and apparently stupidly declined it since that seemed like a logical thing to do, not realizing this idiotic loophole existed that would then make me a further target to more spam. I've received more in my calendar and have done the workaround to add it to a new calendar and delete that calendar, but am now receiving them in the Reminders app and see no way remove it without declining.

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Completely unacceptable that this is happening, and there's not even a simple option on the user side to block incoming invites outright. Unbelievable.

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Nov 25, 2016 8:01 PM in response to zinacef

You're making a big assumption that the users Apple account has been compromised.


I'm getting these too, to an Apple email account I never, ever use. I'd say it's more likely Apple's database of usernames has been hacked by Chinese based spammers because they not only determined my email address, it would appear they know my name also and that can't be determined by a random generator to match a random email attempt. See screenshot. Unless the Calendar web app is performing it's own substitution of my full name for the icloud email address?


Also I have the strongest password token that apple will allow. There is zero indication my Apple account has been compromised.


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Nov 9, 2016 11:43 AM in response to WestieLover2016

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.


Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.


Feedback

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Nov 24, 2016 2:13 PM in response to Andrew Mcvinnie

The workarounds are appreciated but the bottom line is that this is a serious issue and Apple should have known better. How many times do tech companies have to learn this lesson? Anything done automatically on behalf of the user by any software should NEVER be on by default.


I thought we all learned that with Outlook opening attachments automatically many years ago. And Safari opening downloading by default. Apparently not. Calendar should not be sending notifications on your behalf to anyone without first asking if that's okay, no matter what. And if it insists on doing it, it should give the option to send nothing on a case-by-case basis.


Everyone who is as annoyed by this as I am, please go to Apple's feedback page, dig down through macOS apps to Calendar and send your feedback. This should never have happened in the first place.


http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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Spam Calendar Invites

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