Most of us have learned to be wary of an unexpected email. Far fewer people think twice about an unexpected meeting invite – and scammers have noticed.
According to reporting by PCWorld and Business Insider, data from security firm Sublime shows calendar-based phishing attacks increased more than tenfold between July and August 2026. Microsoft has also reported a sharp rise in these attacks.
How the scam works
An invite lands on your calendar for a meeting you never arranged. It might mention a missed call, an unpaid invoice or a subscription that needs renewing, and it usually contains a link. Because it shows up in your calendar rather than your inbox, it feels routine, and curiosity does the rest. The link leads to a fake login page or something worse.
Business Insider describes one victim who only found out her account had been taken over when her own contacts started receiving bogus calendar invites from her. That is the real risk for a business: one compromised mailbox becomes a trusted launch pad to attack your customers and suppliers.
What to do this week
- Treat unknown invites like unknown emails. If you do not recognise the sender or the meeting, do not click links inside it.
- Check the sender, not just the name. Look at the actual email address. If in doubt, call the person on a number you already have.
- Be suspicious of urgency. Invoices, missed calls and expiring subscriptions are classic pressure tactics.
- Stop invites adding themselves. Google Calendar can be set to only add invitations automatically from known senders, and Microsoft 365 administrators can review how external invites are handled.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for every staff account, so a stolen password alone is not enough.
- Tell your team. A two-minute heads-up at your next staff meeting is one of the cheapest protections you can buy.
If someone has already clicked, change their password straight away and check whether their account has sent anything unusual.
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