I got my first spam yesterday that sent me an Outlook calendar invite. Looks like they are trying to take advantage of some of the Outlook features.
One of the Outlook features that many people I have seen use is “Accept calendar invites automatically”. So in this scheme, a meeting would be accepted and the person’s email would be confirmed. If you are using this feature you may want to consider turning it off so that your email address can’t be confirmed.
Now of course there are many ways to confirm email even if you don’t do this. However, the fewer options that we give hackers/criminals, the more it helps everyone. Another useful thing is to report spam that gets through so your email system administrator can tighten the spam protection. Deleting emails as well helps and not clicking on them to view them is helpful as well. The less you interact with spam email, the less information criminals have about you and your organization.
In other email news, this week I have had hackers try to spam me in my email to give me my cell phone number. They pretend they are CEO or other VIPS and say that they have something urgent to communicate that can only be done through email. No CEO/VIP is going to text you to do something. They barely know you exist in most large companies. If there is a communication with a high sense of urgency it is almost 100% a scam.
Criminals expect you to be lazy and stupid. Let’s not prove them right.