A serious security problem has been uncovered in Skype, which allows hackers to hijack accounts just by knowing users’ email addresses.
The Next Web describes how it managed to reproduce the attack, accessing the Skype accounts of staff by just knowing their email address, and then changing the passwords of their “victims” to lock them out.
According to The Next Web:
“The reason this works is simple, but it’s still worrying. When you use an existing email address to sign up with Skype again, the service emails you a reminder of your username, which is okay, since no one else should have access to your email. Unfortunately, because this method enables you to get a password reset token sent to the Skype app itself, this allows a third party to redeem it and claim ownership of your original username and thus account.”
The issue was reportedly documented on Russian forums months ago, and appears to have been easy to exploit.
Skype has responded to the reports by…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.
