Can Skype Conversations Be Hacked ?

[gawguy]

There are some things I am increasingly reluctant to do on line. My antivirus software occasionally reports malware then "fixes" it, but the malware is there for who knows how long before it is found.

 

I have started phoning into various services and have had good success. Nor is it too time consuming. Sometimes one keys in a telephone password and other info like SS#, sometimes you give personal info to a phone rep.

 

Using Skype - can a hacker listen in?

 

It seems really unlikely that hackers would bother to monitor phone calls unless they do what they do with websites, which is to look for and recognize a link to a site and then follow the transaction. With a Skype connection they would have to be looking for telephone contact with a site and then activate the spy process.

 

How protected are interactions on Skype? What are your thoughts in general on the whole issue of online transactions v. Skype telephone transactions.

 

Thanks,

Gaw Guy

[bust]

Skype accounts can be hacked through the address book. Can you listen in? Have no idea.

[radioman]

Wireshark allows you to capture and intercept VoIP sessions but not Skype, it uses a proprietary protocol that's somewhat closely guarded. MS paid big bucks for it. Personally I would not worry about it, even my bizarre online sex sessions with my GF on Skype are hardly likely to be of interest to anyone else methinks, and in any case, so what?

 

But ponder this.

Use Wi-Fi in a public space and be completely at risk. Anyone running Wireshark, a free download, and a wireless pcap card can monitor your Wi-Fi traffic. Since things like email passwords and user names are transmitted in plain text format these can easily be grabbed. Try this on a wired network for free to see what I mean.

 

If you really want to scare yourself from ever doing anything online ever, especially wirelessly, learn to use Wireshark. It's an excellent network debuging tool but the possibilities for missuse are seemingly endless. Understand 10% of what it can do and you'll never ever go online again. If someone writes (or has written) a decrypt for the Skype protocol then even that's insecure.

 

Since when has anything been secure. POTS calls are pure analog in the local loop even today. Who worries about this stuff?