New AI sorting: Apple Mail praise phishing messages

The automatic sorting of messages in Apple Mail, which is activated with iOS 18.4 and MacOS 15.4, which is activated regardless of Apple Intelligence, not only causes confusion for users, but can also promote spam and phishing messages. This is what the Swiss YouTuber and technology journalist has Rafael Zeier found. An allegedly “repayment” of CHF 376 landed at the top of the “important” inbox from Apple Mail on the iPhone. At the same time, Apple Intelligence also priorated the message.

“Time -critical transaction”

All of this means that users can hardly recognize a fraud message as such. If you trust the sorting of Apple Mail, it will then be clicked faster if necessary. When the message is opened, even more pressure is set up-by Apple Mail itself. “Time-critical transaction” with a shopping icon appeared in Zeierer Spam message. Interestingly, there is no information in the mail itself which company it is. “Your refund is waiting: act immediately!” there is only, plus money and a link as well as “delays on their part can lead to unnecessary complications”.

If you click on the mail, you reach a strange URL (which does not match the mail) that is a insurance website. There you should type in your customer information, with which the attackers can then drive a shingle. In Apple Mail, a URL can be detected by clicking on it for a long time, then a preview and the address appear. There is no way to recognize the URL by driving the mouse pointer, as is the case in Apple Mail for MacOS for a lack of mouse control on the iPhone.

Apple needs better filters – and more training

The incident shows that Apple apparently has some catching up to do with its AI systems. Such phishing emails should actually be recognized and stopped by spam filters (which are available in iCloud Mail, Google Mail or many companies). But when she goes through, Apple’s voice model sometimes seems to prone to misinterpret messages.

Since in this case a lot of characteristics can be seen that it is phishing (such as no indication of the company, building pressure, strange/inappropriate URL), it is very surprising that categorization strikes as “important” (plus prioritization in Apple Intelligence). Apple is currently trying to get better training data – but what data protection officers criticize. Categories in Apple Mail can be turned off. The feature was first introduced in English in iOS 18.2 / MacOS 15.2. With clicking on “All Mails” you don’t see the categories, alternatively the classic list display via the button with the three points is reactivated.