Fixed fault of security in Skype for Mac, users said to update

Attention all Mac owners who use Skype. A fault has been identified in 5 Skype that allows an attacker to obtain the remote control of a Mac computer running the software.

Gordon Maddern, a member of a group of ethical hackers based in Australia under the name of pure hacking, wrote in a note of blog Friday that it had identified the fault security last month. "The long and short and is that an attacker must only send a victim a message and they will be able to obtain the victim's Mac remote control, said Maddern.".

Describes the error "extremely exploited and dangerous", Maddern has contacted Skype to inform them of the issue and heard nothing back - until today. Some time after his post appeared on the pure hacking blog, Skype has posted a response on its own Web site to reassure users.

Adrian Asher, Skype chief information security officer, confirmed that the company was contacted by Maddern last month. In the post, Asher explained that the question has been "linked to a situation when a malicious contact would send a specially crafted message that could cause Skype for Mac to crash." Note, this message would have to come from a person already in your Skype contacts list as default Skype privacy settings will let you receive messages from people that you the have not previously authorized. ?

In the post, Asher claimed that they were already working on a fix when they heard of pure piracy, and therefore based Luxembourg has released a patch (Skype for Mac version 5.1.0.922) on April 14. This update, however, was not pushed to users of Skype a€ so there is no report of this vulnerability exploited in the wild. a€

Asher is going to announce that a new update, which will include the fix with a number of other bug fixes, will be sent next week. This update, however, prompts users to install. Position of Asher ends by recommending that users ensure that they are running the latest version of Skype (with patch 14 April). Mac users can now check by clicking here. Skype with Windows and Linux users are not sensitive to the vulnerability.

Founded in 2003, hugely popular VoIP application of the company may have about 23 million recorded users and chat at any time. Recent reports have suggested that the company is in talks with Google and Facebook regarding a possible joint venture or acquisition.