http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=9847
By John E. Dunn
Techworld
20 August 2007
Skype is an easy target for hacking and offers a way inside a corporate
network.
That's according to a report from managed security company Network Box
which said Skype could be undermined by a malevolent insider working to
open hidden backdoors.
It's more bad news for Skype, following a week in which its users have
struggled with crippling service outages.
In the short report, Skype Friend of Foe?, Network Box suggests how the
program could be compromised. Because Skype uses a proprietary protocol
to evade detection, it could not only stymie blocking systems, but if
hijacked would be a perfect system to compromise the security of any
communications made using it. Any built-in hack would be invisible to
corporate security systems until it was too late.
The security of the Skype system depends entirely on the good will of
Skypes programmers and the organisation running Skypes back-end servers.
It is possible that there are back doors in the system, allowing the
Skype organisation or others to eavesdrop or record Skype conversations,
the report says.
As well as hiding itself, Skype has also established a cycle of
continuous upgrades that made effective detection and management tricky.
The Skype program can update itself every time it runs, so the security
over the overall system can change without warning or even a change in
appearance. Systems could be brought down by an error in this download.
With last weeks outages in mind, it concludes that even companies
willing to use the programme in a proxy setup, should assume a degree of
unreliability and insecurity when compared to running standards-based
VoIP over a VPN.
Other recommendations include being careful about the identity of
apparently legitimate Skype contacts, using a login for Skype not used
to access any other system, and making sure that Skype users inside
companies dont identify the companies they are working for in their user
names or Skype profiles.
Worries over Skypes security are nothing new, some thing the company has
attempted to address with a business version that claims to be easier
for IT administrators to manage and control.
Received on Tue Aug 21 00:26:28 2007