Apple acknowledges one of the biggest bug of iPhone and iPad

Apple acknowledges one of the biggest bug of iPhone and iPad

Apple has acknowledged the frustrating iCloud invite spam that has plagued users throughout the last week.

The fake iPhone calendar events, which automatically populate your app, are sent from unsolicited events from anonymous senders – usually with Chinese names.

The events are often recurring over a number of days – and promote discounts and deals from dubious retail outlets on branded items including UGG Boots and Ray-Ban glasses.

It is thought the online spammers are mass targeting any iCloud email accounts found online – rather than targeting any specific users.

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Some iPhone owners have also seen the same spam appear in their iCloud Photo Sharing library too.Apple has acknowledged the problem in a statement to iMore.

Speaking to the technology blog, a spokesperson for the company said: "We are sorry that some of our users are receiving spam calendar invitations.

“We are sorry that some of our users are receiving spam calendar invitations : Apple Spokesperson”

"We are actively working to address this issue by identifying and blocking suspicious senders and spam in the invites being sent."

Recipients of the spam invites are often left in a confusing situation – as there is no clear solution available to users.

Apple, please prevent iCloud calendar and photo sharing spam! There is no way to stop it without disabling sharing completely pic.twitter.com/PsSaiQ2S5G

— John Lemp (@duckworth) November 19, 2016

That's something new — spam via iCloud calendar invite pic.twitter.com/ML5eAsqoUv

— Yury Yurevich (@yurevich) November 18, 2016

@ocell When I hit delete, Calendar in MacOS wants to send the "organizer" a decline notification. No good.

— Chris Owens (@ocell) November 18, 2016

Apple, please prevent iCloud calendar and photo sharing spam! There is no way to stop it without disabling sharing completely pic.twitter.com/PsSaiQ2S5G

— John Lemp (@duckworth) November 19, 2016

"Save 20% on UGGs," one spam promotion claims.

"$19.99 Ray-ban&Oakley Sunglasses," another example said.

Users can click on the spam event and press the Decline button at the bottom of your iPhone or iPad display to delete the spam event.

Unfortunately, that will also let the spammer know that the email address they have on file actually works. And that's not good.

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Therefore, pressing Decline could do more harm than good.

However Calendar on iOS and macOS does not currently have a way to single-out and block these spam invites.

The spam invites are annoyingly, but completely harmless so long as you do not follow the URL links within the invite.

Apple is employing spam-detection techniques to attack the issue from the server side. Hopefully this will prevent the invites from being mailed out in the first place.

In the meantime, you can disable the auto-add calendar feature from your iCloud account.