Thursday, August 27, 2009

New Twist On Malware: Recording Skype Phone Calls

There's a new twist on the neverending battle against viruses and malware today: researchers at computer security software firm Symantec are reporting that there is now publicly available source code, which hacks the Skype Voice-over-IP software to record audio from any Skype call in progress on a users' computer, and transmit them to an attacker. Symantec said that the Trojan--which doesn't spread via Skype, but through other means--can be used to record phone calls and eavesdrop on conversations. Symantec said the risk posed by the threat is "quite low" and there's no evidence of it spreading, but that it's likely that malware writers will be incorporating the functionality into their own software soon. Symantec says it is detecting the code as "Trojan.Peskyspy".