Posted on 11/29/2016 10:46:32 AM PST by Swordmaker
Over recent weeks, iCloud users have started to notice an increased amount of spam coming to various aspects of their accounts. Email accounts, of course, are always vulnerable to spam messages and the root cause can be a variety of different reasons. This new type of spam, however, relates to iCloud’s Calendar and Photo Sharing functionalities…
Essentially what happens in these instances is an iCloud user will receive a request for either a Calendar event or to view/share an iCloud Photo Sharing album or image. The issue with this type of spam is that, even if the user hits “Decline,” it informs the spammer that the account is active and thus encourages them to continue sending the spam.
So, if you receive a Calendar invite that’s spam and simply choose the “Decline” option, the problem won’t go away. In fact, it’s likely to increase because the spammer knows that the account is active. The same goes for iCloud Photo Sharing. Hit decline and you’re opening yourself up to more spam, not getting rid of that sender for good. This, of course, is different from Mail spam, which is either cleaned out by a spam filter or is a one-off thing because there’s no way for the spammer to know if the account is active or not.
Now, there’s good and bad news. For the case of iCloud Calendar spam, you can stop it. But for iCloud Photo Sharing spam, there’s not much you can do.
Dutch website AppleTips discovered a workaround that allows you to move a spam Calendar invitation without actually accepting or declining it.
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.
For iCloud Photo Sharing spam, the only solution is to entirely turn off the feature. This can be done by going into Settings, then to Photos & Camera, then “Disable iCloud Photo Sharing.”
It’s unclear how widespread this type of spam is, but we’ve received multiple tips from readers about the issue, while users on Twitter have also expressed frustration with the newfound spam method. What’s important to note here is that most users would likely just hit “Decline” on the notification thinking that doing so would stop the spam, when in fact it could even increase it.
Have you experienced this type of spam? Let us know down in the comments if you have and if the above fix helps resolve it.
Blocking future calendar spam is less involved but requires a visit to your iCloud account using a DESKTOP BROWSER. Log in to your iCloud account and go to the Calendar Web app, click on the Settings gear icon in the bottom left corner of the Calendar view, and click Preferences.
The pop-up menu on the iCloud Calendar Web view, pick "Preferences."
Click the "Advanced" button in the Preferences pop-up window. At the bottom of the window, change the Invitations setting for "Receive event invitations as:" from "In-app notifications" to "Email to [your iCloud account address]." Enter your email address you prefer to use.
This will turn off the automatic integration of iCloud Calendar with your Calendar app and allow your spam filters to block unwanted invitations.
You will now receive invitations in your email instead of automatically marking the time and day in your calendar and requiring you to accept or decline — which tells the spammer that there is a live human being with a legitimate account at the other end. This all gets rid of the spam with out notifying the spammer of such valuable information once and for all, and keeps them from knowing they can keep sending it. Your MAIL APP spam filter will keep you from seeing unwanted invitations and you should still see invitations from your friends and family who are in your contact list.
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Welcome back Swordmaker
I have missed your post.
Thank you so much for this!! One of these stupid spams woke me up this morning!
bfl
These spam invites are a nuisance and it is nice to know there is a work around but why hasn’t Apple addressed the problem?
Sea
These have only reared their ugly heads in the past month or so using a useful app function. . . it's going to take some time to figure out how to filter out the spammers while retaining the utility of the invitation functions. Apple has said they are working on it. Just limiting invitations to people already in your contacts list is one somewhat unsatisfactory approach as it very much limits whose can invite to events.
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