Some users who iCloud for their calendar have been seeping invite spam in the last few weeks. This meant that users were seeing calendar periods being blocked up by unwanted events from unknown senders. It’s been widely reported that spammers are trying any combination of iCloud email address rather than targeting specific users.
Apple has now issued a statement to iMore, starting by apologizing to customers who were effected by the iCloud calendar spam. The company then goes on to say that it is actively ‘identifying and blocking suspicious senders” to try and remove the junk invites.
Here’s the full statement:
We are sorry that some of our users are receiving spam calendar invitations. We are actively working to address this issue by identifying and blocking suspicious senders and spam in the invites being sent.
Those effected are left out in the cold for a little bit as there isn’t an obvious solution to the issue. Users can decline the invite, but that will only remove it from their calendars, and does not prevent spammers from sending more invites down the road.
In fact, hitting decline will let the other user know that the e-mail is actually linked to a real person, so doing so may not be the best idea.
As for the future, Apple may push out a software update to its macOS and iOS operating system but the company has yet to give us any details regarding this.
Possibly, Apple could create a function similar to iMessage/SMS/FaceTime blocking where users can block an email. Another solution for future spam would be to add a “report junk” feature like they already do for iMessage in iOS 10.
For now, we’ll have to wait for Apple to make its next move.
