New Worm Spreading Through Skype

It was only a matter of time before Skype, the popular VoIP software was made a target by virus authors. Websense, a leading internet security firm has discovered a worm that propagates through Skype Chat - the inbuilt instant messaging tool.

The worm which probably originated somewhere in the Asia-Pacific region (with a high likelihood of being Korea) prompts users to download and run a file called sp.exe. Once run a spyware gets installed - which can then steal login credentials and other sensitive information. It can even connect to remote servers to download additional malwares.

Reports about the number of affected people are yet to come in.

Source: http://news.a.com.com/

not surprising at all. It was inevitable for Skype to get hit with a virus. However, this virus only work for Windows users.xboxrulz

God dammit i hate people who screw with regular users. If i ever have the money ill create a task force to hunt for *BLEEP*s who distribute such crap. Why do people do such things? Whats next vonage?

I don't like skype, anyway, when I use it is just for making calls. I don't keep it on to receive calls.Anyway it's a bit stupid to prompt the user to download a file wich is not trusted... I shouldn't be a problem for experienced users.

I used to use skype but i uninstalled it because it didn't seem to be working and also because i had no real serious use for it.If the user has a choice of downloading the 'sp.exe' file then it isn't such a big risk for the people that know what their doing, it's also common sence not to download anything if you don't know who it's from or what it does. Especially if it has a fishy name just like 'sp'.I think skype should have some kind of news ticker or someway to let users know about security risks like this one and what to do. An automated system would be better, denying the transfer of files named sp and keep adding to the list as more known worms and virus' spread.-HellFire

Experienced users might know what is going on but the average JOE just clicks away. If a program says mandatory update, the user will just press okay and continue his mission. Yet that update script could have been a virus or worm. Even advacned users might fall for such scams. Something else needs to be done.

Well, Skype in my country got very popular and almost everyone has it installed and is using it regularly being online or offline, almost everyone moved from irc to skype chat, messengers here aren't very popular such as yahoo, msn, aim and etc. But what I don't understand about this virus/worm is one thing, how can it prompt to download a file for some kind of a user, if Skype doesn't let to receive or send anything who is not in your contacts and you haven't shared your contact details, so in my opinion for this kind of a worm/virus only people who don't know a lot about computers can be tricked, due to firstly the virus/worm needs to ask for contact details (I don't share contact details with anyone I don't know of) and only then it can offer to receive a file and you would be stupid to download it anyway from a stranger and furthermore, you would need to to execute/run it.. So what is the difference from getting an email with an attachment from a stranger which has a virus.. Skype is quite a save software, the protocol it is using isn't save, I mean p2p.Anyway, it affects only Windows, of course, this is not a surprise? Does anyone here using Linux is afraid to open an attachment in an email? I don't think so, I never was afraid of any virus when I was regularly using AmigaOS, so this is nothing special.

well that was expected and atleast it not gona stop at this point.and rather for hacker who are always looking for something new to hack and i guess there'll be more to come as for more worms and posibly trojans. and if so the company of Skype did not notice or do something about this issue i expect nothing but a total miss ... :P

Doesn't Windows XP warn you when you choose to run an non-know/non-trusted executable? I swear I've seen that kind of message at some of our university computers. Or it could just be some added security software.At least in here people are preached enough not to open any email attachments and other such that they're actually getting paranoid. And as this is not a "sneaky" virus in anyway, I doubt it won't be a problem here.