WARNING! New Calendar Scam!
Phishing scams are increasing in frequency and sophistication these days and more and more people fall victim to them each and every day. New twists on older phishing scams are emerging and I want to talk to you today about one of those and how best to avoid them.
It really does make me angry at how people are taken advantage of by these types of scams and so I want to try and help put a stop at that today. Even if it’s just one person who was able to avoid this, it’s still one person who was not able to fall victim to it. So what is this new phishing scam? Read on to find out.
Calendar Invites
Now this might seem a bit odd, but it appears that online calendars are the latest application to fall victim of being used by phishing scammers. How is this possible? Well I’ll explain and it also appears that most online calendars are not safe from this.
What they do is they’ll use the calendar’s regular or default settings in order to set fake events or reminders that will have a lot of links that are not legitimate and will try to steal your information. Microsoft Outlook, the Google Calendar and other online calendars are all vulnerable to this.
Hacker
If you’re one who uses a calendar frequently and constantly checks up on it to see what you might have scheduled on any particular day, you’ll definitely want to pay close attention to this. You might happen to check it one day and see an unusual event that you don’t remember adding or even accepting and so you might be curious to click on the link to see what it is all about. DON’T CLICK IT! It is a fake website that is trying to get login as well as other valuable information from you. The scammers could also use that link to download malware onto your computer.
What to Look Out For
If this new phishing scam has you worried, there’s a simple way to avoid. When you’re checking your calendar and you see something that you don’t recognize or don’t remember setting, odds are it is a phishing scam so do not click on any of those links.
Don’t hesitate to contact someone if you need to confirm whether an event was set on a specific date of if there was a link included with it. There’s just too many ways out there for people to get ahold of your critical and personal information and it really is sad that scammers resort to these things, but what I just mentioned above is definitely a great way to protect yourself from what the scammers are doing today.
You can always change the settings in your calendar if you need to as this is another great way to help keep the scammers from trying to target you. Outlook and other calendar programs might even have a way to make it password protected so I would look under settings to make sure that’s possible. If you do the things I mentioned, you can prevent yourself from become a victim of this calendar scam.
September 19, 2019 @ 2:48 am
Using Calendar as a scam to steal people’s private data looks very bad to me since everyone needs a calendar to remind themselves for something important to do. I like the way you mentioned the bad sides of this scam using people’s habits, and I will definitely inform my parents for this kind of scams on the internet since they are very kind and easy to fall into this trap. I wonder why this calendar scam will appear on the browser when we surf on the internet? Is it because we click some ads on the page, so it appears automatically as a google ad?
September 20, 2019 @ 3:34 am
If you’re using Google Calendar, the scammers have found a way to to get into some of the inner workings of it and add stuff to your calendar. It won’t appear as an ad, it might say something like “Click here to confirm meeting at 7am”. You click it and it takes you somewhere where it will try to steal your information or download malware on your computer.
September 19, 2019 @ 2:49 am
Wow! Calendar scamming? This world is really turning to something else. How on earth would anyone think of stealing files from calendar? That is outrageous. Thanks for sharing this security information and I think virtually all of is should get to read us. Thanks so much for sharing all these information about it. I would definitely keep close tabs on this
September 20, 2019 @ 3:36 am
It’s getting scary how these scammers are getting more and more crafty to try and fool us to get our sensitive information. Glad I could help you be aware of this dangerous phishing scam.
September 19, 2019 @ 2:52 am
The rate at which scammers develop new strategies to scam individuals is truly alarming. They change pattern every now and then. I remember how a friend of mine fell a victim to this Calendar Scam. They got access to his Paypal email and cleared all his funds. He lost thousands of dollars to these unscrupulous elements.
All thanks to you for opening our eyes to this new scam strategy
September 20, 2019 @ 3:39 am
Oh my gosh! Sorry to hear your friend fell victim to this scam. It makes me angry that scammers take advantage of people and try take their hard earned money in some cases or steal their identity in others. We always have to be so vigilant these days!
September 19, 2019 @ 2:56 am
They are great exposes that you are doing there warning the general public of the scams that are already all over the web. I must say this is a new one, have not heard of it. It’s frightening how one can access your calendar and spam it and at the end phish you.
Great care is highly called for just like you said. In essence, these days one cannot bee too careful.
September 20, 2019 @ 3:51 am
These scammers keep trying to find new ways to infiltrate and take what we’ve worked so hard for. Just think if they actually took that dedication and put towards something that would be productive instead of stealing our sensitive information.
September 19, 2019 @ 3:02 am
Excellent article on New Calendar Scam,you have made my day reading this wonderful post,it is an eye opener, I normally see this sometimes,asking to me click, DON’T CLICK IT! It is a fake website that is trying to get login as well as other valuable information from you, I will yield to your warning, I was once a victim,but your write-up has revealed this ordeal of the scammers,thank you greatly for this awesome article,you are saving many from becoming a victim of scammer,kudos to your writing prowess
September 20, 2019 @ 3:52 am
I’m glad I could be of great help here. I want as many people as possible to avoid this horrible new scam that’s going around. Sorry to hear that you’ve been a victim of scammers in the past.