Skype is being used to spread adware to unsuspecting victims but Microsoft and Amazon are on the case.
Researchers at PhishMe discovered that Skype was being used to spread nefarious applications to unsuspecting victims. Luckily, this isn’t a case of technological failure but rather one of a bit of social engineering.
While savvy users, like our readers, know better than to click on mysterious links and download “software that makes your PC run faster”, many "regular" people aren’t so circumspect. That’s why they might be willing to click on a nefarious link that was being spread through Skype IMs, claiming that someone was trying to call the user.
Upon clicking, users would be taken to a site that told them to download various pieces of adware in order to view the message and to enjoy “safer browsing”. Their machine would then be riddled by software that redirected internet traffic, all for the purpose of showing ads.
The researchers contacted Microsoft as well as Amazon, which was hosting some of the domains where the attacks and spam were coming from. Together, the two companies are disrupting this scheme by nuking the Skype accounts involved and going after the IP addresses used.
Source: SC Magazine