Skype account hijack vulnerability fixed

Published: 2012-11-14
Last Updated: 2012-11-14 21:33:31 UTC
by Jim Clausing (Version: 1)
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The folks over at Microsoft (who now owns Skype) fixed a bug earlier today that potentially would have allowed anyone to hijack a Skype account simply by knowing the e-mail address the account was associated with.  Apparently the vulnerability was found at least 3 months ago by a Russian researcher who claims that many users were affected.  I'm not aware of any procedures in place to reclaim a Skype ID that was hijacked, but if anyone knows of one please let us know either by leaving a comment or contacting us via the contact page.  Trend Micro[1] has a pretty good writeup, so I won't rehash the whole thing here and Microsoft has responded[2].

References:

[1] http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/skype-vulnerability/

[2] http://heartbeat.skype.com/2012/11/security_issue.html

---------------
Jim Clausing, GIAC GSE #26
jclausing --at-- isc [dot] sans (dot) edu

Keywords: hijack Skype
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November 2012 OUCH! - Two-Factor Authentication http://www.securingthehuman.org/resources/newsletters/ouch#2012
ISC StormCast for Wednesday, November 14th 2012 http://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail.html?id=2941

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