The question was brought up last week in class by a student about whether Skype is safe to use in a business sense. It seemed obvious to me that Skype shouldn’t be deemed safe for business/confidential use because of all the attacks lately on the news about it but some students had a different thought. So when I seen a new article written about the privacy concerns of Skype I need I had to write a post about it.
This week an article on cnet.com reported that “a malicious worm is spreading through Skype instant message threatens to take control of a victim’s machine and hold its contents for ransom.(Musil, 2012)” Basically there is a zip file with a link and some verbiage attached to it like “lol is this your new profile pic? (Musil, 2012)” When a user clicks on that link a worm installs and creates a backdoor and the attacker takes control and installs a ransomware application. The user gets a message on their screen saying they need to pay $__ amount of dollars or risk having their filed deleted. It also tries give off the impression that they are working along with the government claiming that the PC has been used to download illegal material (mp3’s, pornography etc.).
Skype is still investigating the incidents and suggest that you should never click on a suspicious link even if it looks like it’s from someone you know. They recommend updating to the newest Skype version and also upgrading your computer antivirus. This kind of stuff can happen to any software. But this just is one more piece of evidence to prove that Skype should not be used for confidential information no matter whether you use its videoconferencing or its instant messaging features.
References:
Musil, S. (2012, October 8). Worm spreading on skype im installsransomware. . Retrieved fromhttp://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57528353-83/worm-spreading-on-skype-im-installs-ransomware/
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