How Spammers Insert Events In Your Google Calendar? Fix Is Easy

Few days ago, I got an alert at slightly odd hours on my BlackBerry saying: "Contact FedEx for delivery of your courier." If it were an email, I would have immediately dismissed the message as spam but in the case, the reminder came through my personal Google calendar.

Today, there was a new reminder from Google Calendar again that wanted me collect millions from an ATM. That was definitely spam and the first though was that someone may have gained access to my Google Calendar account. (Related: When Your Google Account is Hacked)

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case - it’s just an old feature in Google Calendar that is allowing spammers to add event reminders to your Calendar without permission.

To understand the problem, create a new event in Google calendar and invite another Google Calendar user for that event by typing his email address in the "guest list" - your event will now automatically show up in his calendar.

And this is exactly what spammers are using to pollute your Google Calendars with false alerts. They know your emails and can therefore easily enter your Google Calendar premises by posing as host of an event.

To prevent someone from spamming your Google Calendar, go to Settings and select "No, only show invitations to which I have responded" under "Automatically add invitations to my calendar" section.

You can also report spam in Google Calendar here. Thanks Google Groups.

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