Avoid Google Calendar phishing scams with these 4 steps

A new scam targeting people who use Google Calendar makes them vulnerable to phishing attacks.

Criminals have figured out a way to access your Google Calendar and put phishing links in event invites, according to Kaspersky Labs, an intelligence firm that specializes in internet security.

Google Calendar phishing scam: ‘Scammers making appointments en masse’

“Spammers have recently taken to making appointments en masse,” Kaspersky researchers said in a blog post.

Here’s how the scam works: Users will see details about a fake event in the topic and location fields of Google Calendar. The scammers sometimes use the lure of money to get you to click on the links.

“Usually, their spam details consist of a short bit of text stating that you are entitled to a cash payment for some reason, and a link that supposedly lets you receive it,” the security firm says.

Because Google Calendar is installed on so many devices, this vulnerability is pretty widespread — but you don’t have to be a victim.

The #1 to not get scammed by phishing attacks and protect yourself?

Never click on suspicious links sent to you via email or your calendar.

Google Calendar phishing scam: 4 steps you must take to protect yourself

To fully protect yourself against this phishing scam, you must change your settings so invites from random users won’t show up. Once you follow these four steps, you should only see Google Calendar invites from people in your contact list:

1. From your device, open your Google Calendar and go to Settings. To find it, click on the gear icon in the top right of the page then click Settings.

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2. Scroll down to “Event Settings,” where you’ll see “Automatically add invitations.”

3. Click on “Automatically add invitations” and it will open a collapsible menu. Click “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.” It will automatically save your preference.

4. Finally, you’ll want to clear out all those invitations that might be bogus on your Google Calendar.

To do that, go to the vertical menu on the right side of the page and click “View options.” Make sure you uncheck “Show declined events.”

Just like that, you’re protected from the Google Calendar phishing scam.

After making these changes, you will still be able to receive emails with Google Calendar invites, but it will be up to you whether to accept them.

Here are some more scam-related articles from Clark.com:

Beware of making this $300,000 mistake with your 401(k)

There’s a hidden time bomb ticking in your 401(k) that could leave you with $300,000 less to spend in retirement than you would otherwise have, according to a new study from Deloitte Consulting LLP.

RELATED: Why you shouldn’t cash out your 401(k) when changing jobs

This hidden leak in your 401(k) could cost you $300,000

When people borrow money from their 401(k)s at work, they often do so with the best of intentions.

They really mean to get around to “paying themselves back” — a rationale that is more fallacy than truth, as we’ll show you in a moment — but sometimes life gets in the way.

There are a couple problems here right off the bat…

In the first place, the fact that you need a 401(k) loan may signal you’re in a financial death spiral, as hard as that can be to admit.

If this is the case, borrowing money as a quick fix — instead of getting on a tight budget as a way to implement a long-term fix — is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it goes down.

Another potential problem with taking out a 401(k) loan is what happens if you suddenly and unexpectedly lose your job.

If that happens, you typically have 60 days to repay the loan in full — otherwise the money is treated as income and taxed accordingly.

And then there are the other ever-present dangers when you have a 401(k) loan, namely defaults and cashouts.

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Check out this hypothetical example

Say you’re a 42-year-old with a 401(k) balance of around $77,000. Now, let’s say something happens in life and you need to borrow $7,000.

Sure, it’s less than a tenth of your balance — but it can have an outsize impact on your future, as we’ll see in a moment.

Now consider this: We’ve already established that you may be teetering on the precipice of financial chaos if you need to take a 401(k) loan. So what happens if Murphy’s Law prevails and everything goes wrong in your financial life, culminating in you defaulting on that $7,000 loan?

Well, Deloitte has a grim picture of the future in the scenario they’ve run.

Let’s say that initial default is followed up by you saying the heck with it and just cashing out the entire remaining $70,000 of your 401(k) to deal with taxes, early withdrawal penalties and to help clean up whatever financial mess you’re in.

This is more common than you’d think. Deloitte says that about two-third of folks who default will just go ahead and liquidate their account entirely.

That’s expected to account for $48 billion of lost wealth that’s being self-plundered from retirement accounts in 2018 alone, according to Deloitte.

But, wait, there’s more!

What started as a $7,000 loan that you defaulted on quickly ballooned to a $77,000 cashout in our example. But here’s where it gets really bad.

Deloitte crunched the numbers and found it all adds up to a scenario where you’re likely to have $300,000 less in retirement.

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That’s because you miss out on $217,000 of potential investment return when your money isn’t there to grow for you!

More money stories on Clark.com