iPhone Calendar phishing invitations sent by email

Question

Level 1

6 points

iPhone Calendar phishing invitations sent by email

I'm now getting daily phishing attempts via spam email. The phishing emails contain a calendar event that automatically shows up 1) on my calendar and 2) in my calendar inbox. I have this happening via two completely different email accounts. Anti-spam is working fine on these accounts - mails go straight into Junk. Where Apple totally screws this up is:

1) It accepts the invitation for processing regardless of whether the originating email goes into the junk folder

2) It doesn't allow any configuration of either email or calendar to prevent processing of calendar events

3) It does not allow deletion of the invitation or event - only Accept, Decline, or Maybe. Any of which will send a notification to the scammer that they have a live target.

I did call Apple support on this, and the agent said that Apple knows of the problem but not what to do about it, which I found odd. They recommended that I either 1) Decline or 2) Wait for them to disappear because they are time sensitive. I don't trust 1) and with 2) this worked until the most recent batch which are not expiring and collecting in my Calendar.

And then there is this unhelpful link:

support.apple.com/en-us/102444

Which is garbage - THERE IS NO DELETE

Also regarding instructions regarding Calendar - it's my default calendar that's being attacked. No I can't delete it or turn it off.

This does not seem to be rocket science. Why can't calendar invitations be deleted? Why don't settings allow auto-inclusion as an option rather than default behavior? Why not be sure that the mail is in the Inbox and not Junk prior to processing the invitation? This is extremely sloppy security.

Am I the only one with this problem? Is there a clever way around it? Is there a known bug report/feature request I can pile onto?

iPhone 16, iOS 18

Posted on Oct 10, 2025 2:48 PM

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Answer 1

Mac Jim ID

Level 9

59,204 points

Nov 15, 2025 11:52 AM in response to mjmcmorrow1971

Are you sure your Outlook account is being synced in the Calendar app where they do not appear there?

There has been an infiltration of spam calendar invites that affects all Microsoft Exchange accounts including Hotmail and Outlook. This has been seen on the Microsoft Support forums affecting all platforms and also here recently. Turning off syncing that account in the Calendar app at Settings > Apps > Calendar > Account, immediately removes those spam invites. When you choose to sync an account to the Calendar app, you will receive the spam invites that are synced from the server of that account.

To a certain extent it can also happen with a gmail account, but Google has an option in the gmail settings accessed by the web to turn off automatic invites.

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Answer 2

Nov 10, 2025 12:28 PM in response to jwm_mbt

I have this same problem. It began within the last month or so. The description above is accurate. The spammers put in an event date and Apple puts it in the Calendar inbox with no way to remove without notifying the spammer.

The calendar chosen is the one associated with the "to" address (I have several email addresses).

I reported this informally to Apple Support while dealing with another issue asking the rep to report to management.

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Answer 3

Oct 16, 2025 8:43 AM in response to jwm_mbt

Here’s an idea - if Mail is smart enough to mark the calendar invite email as junk/spam, why does the Calendar app pick up the invitation anyway? It should ignore invitations in junk mail!

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Answer 4

Nov 15, 2025 11:31 AM in response to jwm_mbt

I'm having the same issue; it seems to have just started in the last few weeks. the phishing attacks are coming directly into my calendar and calendar invites only on my iPhone and only through the iCal app. If there are related emails they are not coming through.

On my computer, this account is on Outlook, and there are no related calendar invites or emails that appear on the computer. They are only in my default calendar on iCal on my phone. There is no way to delete them, and they seem to be coming in pairs - one for the middle of the night the following day, and another one several months into the future. There needs to be a solution where they can be deleted without being accessed.

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