Scammers Are Exploiting Apple Calendar to Send Phishing Emails (Again)
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The spam of the Apple calendar is not new: iCloud users have started to report an influx of unwanted invitations almost a decade ago, and the crooks have returned to this tactic over the years to proliferate malicious links with phishing sites. The people of 9TO5MAC recently reported having received a recent rash of spam invitations containing malicious ties that lead to cryptocurrency scams.
Bad actors also abuse calendar invitations to send phishing emails that look like PayPal purchase notifications – and because messages come from Apple’s messaging server, they can slip past security measures and find their way in your reception box.
Crooks use the calendar to send recall phishing emails
This last scam, detailed by BleepingCompute, is a form of reminder phishing, which aims to obtain targets on the phone in order to collect sensitive information or connect to user devices.
The program begins with a calendar invitation to an event entitled “Buying the invoice”. The event tickets indicate that the recipient’s Paypal account was billed for a large sum of money and orders the user to call an assistance number to discuss, make changes or cancel payment. Hope is that you will be afraid to believe that your Paypal account has been compromised. If you call, the crook at the other end will probably try to extract sensitive information or order you to download and install malware on your device under the cover of the publication of a refund.
By looking at it, you will find that the message comes from [email protected]A legitimate Apple mail server, which allowed him to pass security checks and spam filters. As described BleepingCompute, anyone can create an iCloud calendar event and add others to initiate invitations by e-mail from Apple servers.
What do you think so far?
In this case, the crooks also seem to use a Microsoft 365 email address which is in fact a broadcast list, which transmits the messages to the recipients added to the group – the targets of this scam. Threat actors used a similar tactic earlier this year to send emails that seemed to come [email protected].
How to fight false invitations to the calendar
Unfortunately, you cannot do much to prevent invitations from the fraudulent iCloud calendar to reach your reception box, and refuse them can actually worsen the problem. You can transfer spam events to a separate calendar and completely delete calendars, but with regard to notification emails and all the instructions listed, the best thing to do is not to engage.
Always continue with an abundance of prudence with the invitations to the calendar that you did not expect and pay attention to the characteristics of the scam as a feeling of emergency linked to the problems of payment or security of the account. Never call the telephone numbers listed in these messages – if you are concerned about your account, log in via the website or the legitimate application to check the activity and contact the company using the contact details found there.
