A Google Calendar spam issue that has been plaguing users for the last few months is getting fixed, Google said this week on the app’s official help page.
“We’re aware of the spam occurring in Calendar and are working diligently to resolve this issue,” the company wrote, but did not specify a time frame for the fix.
Google users have reported getting flooded by unsolicited invitations in their calendar with posts like, “Your iPhoneX is ready for Pickup,” and a dodgy URL link that lures unsuspecting users to a phishing website. Phishing is when someone is tricked into providing sensitive data and personal information on a website that looks official, such as a bank, but is in fact not legitimate.
In this case, spammers or bots get into a user’s personal calendar by taking advantage of a default setting that accepts unsolicited calendar invitations from anyone, security expert Brian Kreb said in a blog post, noting that Apple and Microsoft calendars are vulnerable too.
The offending Google Calendar events can be reported and removed by going to the calendar on a desktop, double clicking on the event to open it, clicking on “More Actions” at the top of the page, and hitting “Report as Spam.” When one event is reported, all events from the same organizer will be removed as well. Be sure to not reply to the event invitations and do not click on the URL.
Until Google finds a fix that filters out spammers, there is a workaround to prevent future unsolicited invitations from showing up on the calendar. Disabling the feature is not ideal, but useful if the spam events are getting out of hand.
Go to the calendar via a desktop, and click “Settings menu” -- this is the gear wheel on the top right -- then click “Settings.” Under the “General” tab, select “Event settings.” Under “Automatically add invitations,” select “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.” Kreb also provides steps for Outlook and Apple calendar users.
