Recently Researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University found a serious security hole in Skype which may expose a user’s location by revealing their Internet Protocol address. Researchers initiated video calls to 10,000 randomly selected Skype users and discovered that even when a recipient does not accept the incoming call, the user’s Internet Protocol, or IP, address can still be vulnerable to theft.
Armed with an IP address, hackers can uncover specific information about victims, including who they chat with, what they download while online, and in many cases, their zip-code specific location.
For example, the researchers were able to track one Skype user through three different cities during the experiment. The ability to keep tabs on a user may be an immediate nuisance, but the larger implications are alarming. Criminals, terrorists, and hackers may use the security flaw to glean locations of government officials, corporate leaders, politicians, and celebrities.
Computer science professor and study researcher Keith Ross told that, “Any sophisticated high school or college hacker could easily do this,” and emphasized that “the findings have real security implications for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use VoIP or P2P file-sharing services.”
Skype, recently owned by Microsoft, boasts 171 million registered users around the world, who may wonder how such a major security flaw escaped notice. Previously lost of vulnerability has been found on Skype related with android, Facebook and also there was XSS flaws many more
Skype Tuesday said it will address the issue. “We value the privacy of our users and are committed to making our products as secure as possible,” said Adrian Asher, chief information security officer for Skype. “Just as with typical Internet communications software, Skype users who are connected may be able to determine each other’s IP address. Through research and development, we will continue to make advances in this area and improvements to our software.”
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