Skype Probes Potential Security Threat To Its Users’ IP Addresses

Francis Rey Balolong on May 3rd 2012 in 1
skype-probes-potential-security-threat-to-its-users-ip-addresses

Skype has started to investigate a potential security threat to its users' IP addresses. (Image: jayneandd, via Flickr / CC)

Skype has started an investigation about a potential security risk that can give away an account holder’s latest recognized Internet Protocol (IP) address.

The privacy concern displays a user’s IP address through general info and log files even if the targeted user is not on its contacts list.

Adrian Asher, Director of Product Security at Skype, said, “This is an on-going, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies. We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are takings measures to help protect them.”

Skype currently employs a peer-to-peer (P2P) system to route data traffic, but security experts have recently alerted users of its proprietary encryption system that it has yet to undergo thorough examination.

“Even if a system is offering you a means to “mask” your IP address, it would be a wiser assumption that the IP address of your computer and the kinds of activity it is engaged in is visible on at least some basic level and that other apps on your system may well leak further data,” commented Rik Ferguson, Director of Security Research and Communication at EMEA, to answer the report.

Communications software users that are anxious of potential security threats can always use a virtual private network (VPN) to make their data seem to originate from another country. A different approach for users to transmit imprecise IP addresses on the Internet is to use The Onion Router (TOR), a service that provides user anonymity and hard-to-track Internet traffic.


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1 Comment

  1. haI am using a couple of anti-virus products for many years concurrently. Nonetheless guess I only use one for active defense and the other 1 is utilized to check data files that I copy on memory stick for download just before I open them. This has kept m
    haI am using a couple of anti-virus products for many years concurrently. Nonetheless guess I only use one for active defense and the other 1 is utilized to check data files that I copy on memory stick for download just before I open them. This has kept m May 6, 2012 at 3:20 am |

    I find it worrying the information on spyware and virus attacks hasn’t been keeping up with the danger. It seems like several years since spy ware or virus software benefited from any kind of awareness greatly. I wonder if that is the reason why attacks continue and folks are falling victim to infections and spyware.

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