iCloud Calendar adding unknown invitations

[Sub.0]

Just today and yesterday I saw that my calendar has some weird Chinese invitations that were added.

I noticed that they were coming from my iCloud in my "Work" section. I deleted them yesterday, but they reappeared again today.

The invitations seems to add one to almost every single day on my calendar.

Does anyone know how this is happening and any way to permanently get rid of them from getting re added?

I don't have anyone on my contacts that that have this info.

 

[M. Gustave]

I assume you're not Chinese?
Change all your passwords immediately.

 

[smithrh]

Look at other websites for the story - unsure why MacRumors hasn't picked up on it yet.

9 to 5 Mac has covered it.

In any case, this is happening to lots of folks, you're not alone. I just got one.

The spammers are sending out calendar invites en masse, iCloud "helpfully" intercepts them and drops them into your calendar app automatically. If you delete or accept, the spammer gets your reply and then they know it's a valid address. Not good.

You need to actually create a new calendar, move the spam invite to that calendar, then delete that new calendar entirely.

What I find most interesting is that the spam calendar invite was sent to my supposed unlinked, inactive Gmail account. How the heck did iCloud see that message?

I also went on icloud.com and set it so it notifies me by email instead of dropping the spam invite right onto my calendar.

I wonder if icloud is integrated into some of these email service providers such that the spam protection is bypassed. The content of the email was clearly spam with misspellings, grammar issues and lots! of! exclamation! points!

Now I need to investigate how an email from a supposed inactive account is being seen by icloud...

 

[Hal~9000]

So just now I got some random Chinese spam notification on my phone (through the calendar app) for an invitation to buy Oakley sunglasses

I changed my iCloud password as a knee jerk reaction to be safe, but any chance my iCloud account was hacked? Or is this just like a random spam email that they send to a boatload of email addresses and hope some actually make it through the spam filters most companies have in place to block stuff like this?

I don't know if I even want to 'decline' it because wouldn't that send them a notification back? I also don't know if there's even a way to report these ***holes to Apple for spam

Anyone else have this happen to them?

 

[aristobrat]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/9to5ma...-sharing-and-calendar-spam/amp/?client=safari

 

[Hal~9000]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/9to5ma...-sharing-and-calendar-spam/amp/?client=safari

Thank you for the quick reply and great info aristobrat

I ended up using the method the article suggested to delete the spam invitation without sending back a notification to the sender:

Performing the steps below will move the spam invitation to a separate calendar, and from there, that calendar can be deleted. Thus, removing the spam invitation without having to hit “Decline” on the actual notification.

1. Open the Calendar application
2. Navigate down to Calendars, then tap Edit
3. Add a Calender to the list using the same button
4. Give it a name (like Spam) and tap Done
5. Double-tap ‘Done’ to return to the calendar
6. Open the spam invitation
7. Tap the bottom (above invitation) on ‘Calendar’
8. Select the newly created spamcalendar
9. Repeat this for all invitations
10. Now navigate back to the ‘Calendars’
11. Tap the i-button next to the spam calendar
12. Scroll down and tap ‘Delete calendar’

You would think Apple wouldn't allow random spammers to flood your iCloud calendar with invitations and no way for you to opt out of receiving them. It doesn't help that once you receive an invitation, you can't decline it without forcing you to notify the sender that you did

As an additional step to deal with any future spam I also ended up signing into my iCloud account on the web and under calendar -> preferences -> advanced I changed calendar invitations from 'in-app notifications' to 'email me'. This way I can simply delete them much easier as I would any other email spam instead of having to do the above calendar creation method every time.

Edit: @arn you might want to have one of your writers make an article about this issue like 9to5mac did and get the word out so people are aware, plus the added benefit of additional pressure on Apple to fix this quickly.

 

[McGiord]

Thanks a lot for the info! Called Apple support and took me more time to get over the security than to read the suggestion, hopefully they update the Calendar App to enable a delete without accepting or the declining the spam invitation.

 

[willmtaylor]

@WildCowboy , @jclo , are you guys on this?

 

[Shadowbech]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/9to5ma...-sharing-and-calendar-spam/amp/?client=safari

Awesome. Just received similar invitation for the first time and used this to remove it without accepting the invitation. Hopefully won't come again.

 

[Applejuiced]

That's a great deal

 

[bufffilm]

Those instructions don't seem to work for me...could it because I'm not a iCloud user?

 

[blaine07]

This crap has me too. Has to be a app in App Store. Need to figure out where it's coming from... ugh

How can I tell what calendar/email this is tied to?

 

[WildCowboy]

This stuff isn't new, but there seems to be a significant influx of it recently. I just got one today too. It typically comes in through your iCloud calendars.

One way to check how it's coming in is just to hit the "Home" calendar section on the invitation and just look at the calendar structure on the list. That should tell you what account it's associated with. Alternatively, hit the "No Reply" section, find yourself in the list, and hit the info icon. That should show your address that was targeted.

The suggested method for dealing with it does work for iCloud spam: Create a new iCloud calendar called "Spam" or whatever, switch the invitation over to that calendar, and then delete the Spam calendar. That'll get rid of the spam without actually having to accept or decline it, which would notify the spammer your address is active.

 

[futurejetblackowner]

You gotta watch what sites you go on, man.

I'm surprised because I was always told that iPhones can't get viruses/malware/spam

 

[Hal~9000]

This stuff isn't new, but there seems to be a significant influx of it recently. I just got one today too. It typically comes in through your iCloud calendars.

What worries me is this:

• How the hell are they getting our iCloud email addresses? It's not like I've ever used mine on any website outside of Apple
• At what level is Apple getting hacked at to allow these spammers to obtain these iCloud email lists?
• If Apple is getting hacked for user info, what else are they giving up besides just email addresses?

Of course one could just shrug their shoulders and accept it, making an excuse that "they are probably just typing millions of random email addresses and getting lucky", but for me I don't buy that. It seems like they got a dedicated list of iCloud email addresses from somewhere, with the only source being Apple.

Also if you read the 9to5mac article it details how the spammers are also targeting iCloud Photo Sharing users, with no way to combat it outside of turning off photo sharing completely.

For me this seems like this could be a big deal / potential security breach of Apple and I'm not sure why this isn't making the front page with an article that pretty much writes itself so users are aware and Apple has some pressure on them from users to figure out what is going on or try to fix it?

 

[Thor_1]

Also if you read the 9to5mac article it details how the spammers are also targeting iCloud Photo Sharing users, with no way to combat it outside of turning off photo sharing.

I don't use photo sharing but could you provide the link.

 

[vlad_djkax]

Unfortunately, one of those appeared in my iPhone and I ended up hitting "Decline" before researching for it, thus letting them know my account / e-mail is in use. The result was that today, an invitation to sign up to an "whatever" Chinese Photo Sharing came up in the e-mail I use as my Apple ID, probably due to the fact that I don't sign to anyone's Photo Share Album and/or I don't use iCloud Photo Library (only the old Photo Stream). Fortunately, if it's going to come to my e-mail (It's not configured in any of my devices), at least it won't bug me with a notification everyday, but it's disturbs me the way these guys are digging for people's Apple ids...

IMHO, it would help if there was an option to configure iCloud Calendar and Photos to receive / display only invitations from people that exist in someone's Contacts, plus an option to report spam to Apple. IIRC, there's a way of doing it in iMessages. At the bottom of the e-mail, which is from Apple, and not a scam, there's an option to opt out of receiving Photo Sharing invitations, but I don't know if it worked as it should have.

Link to a thread going on in the Apple discussions forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7730449

Link to a way of getting rid of the spam without letting the spammers know your email / id is valid and active:
http://tomsguide.com/us/iphone-stop-icloud-calendar-spam,news-23829.html

 

[CrownVic]

That's a great deal

Thought the same thing! I just bought prescription Ray Ban Wayfarers for 250

 

[robertcoogan]

I had these for about a week, then they stopped. But I just deleted the event, I didn't create a new calendar - and the unwanted event deleted with no problems.

 

[MrMister111]

Just had this on my iPhone 7 from who knows?? is this spam, I declined obviously, but worrying. It also came on my iMac, so obviously something on iCloud or a calendar that is synced?

 

[cgriffis753]

I received 2 of those over the past few weeks from a similar address with some type of Asian characters. One was a calendar and the other was an iCloud photo sharing invite. My guess is it is just spam. I don't believe it is anything to worry about as far as your account being compromised or anything like that as long as you just decline it

 

[MrMister111]

Just very worrying isn't it though. I did decline but how has this been put through?

 

[C DM]

Just very worrying isn't it though. I did decline but how has this been put through?

The thread linked in a preceding post discusses all of that in some more detail.

 

[DaIfoneboss]

Apple's not getting breached and your account with two-step verification on and a decent password is almost impossible to hack and break into the account.

They just have to add a "ignore" button for Calendar invites/etc. Seems like a simple fix at the end of the day.

Disconcerting but with what I mentioned above on, you shouldn't fear of someone being in your iCloud account

 

[hungx]

I got the same event, but declining the invite was not the best action. The decline basically let the spammer know that the iCloud account is active. For those who received it that haven't done anything yet, move the event to a junk calendar and then delete the junk calendar.