Comments on: Skype Hacking

By: TomLiotta

TomLiotta — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 10:23:57 +0000

Can they do this by breaking into our home network? Or do they need to have some kind a “key” to Skype?

They could do it by taking over those other contacts’ accounts. There has been at least one period of time a few months ago when it was known to be possible to capture accounts of others. If that was done and those accounts were never recovered completely by original account owners, I wouldn’t be surprised at the behavior you’ve just described.

But I can’t make a lot of sense if it involves more than a couple of your contacts. Of all Skype accounts, only a tiny fraction were known ever to be captured. For someone to have more than a couple contacts with captured accounts would be interesting statistically. For those accounts to remain captured until now, is a separate statistical oddity.

I can imagine a possibility of someone hacking into and totally reprogramming a router in a home network. To do it in a way that seems only to react to and affect some Skype calls seems very unusual. It certainly doesn’t seem to be a widely seen among Skype users nor does it seem to be a valuable way for a “hacker” to dedicate time. There doesn’t seem to be a pay-off that makes it worthwhile.

I don’t know your ISP nor your router. A resetting of the router back to factory defaults is one possible starting point. If that can’t be done for some reason, then your ISP should take care of it.

Overall, going after unlikely possibilities isn’t worth the effort until after Skype Support can give no help and the behavior doesn’t change.

Tom

By: TomLiotta

TomLiotta — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:19:48 +0000

There is no such thing as “definitely” when asserting a clean system. It doesn’t matter if you wiped and reformatted. It’s still not ‘definite’. It’s only very likely; and then only assuming that your disks were properly wiped and reformatted and your system was properly reloaded from a proper load source and has also been properly firewalled and no programs (including Skype) have been downloaded and installed.

It doesn’t matter if you changed your password in a case involving “calls to harass” you. Your password wouldn’t be involved. If harrassing calls come from IDs that you allow to contact you, the problem physically exists on the other end, not on your end. You can only block calls from those IDs. If the calls are from IDs that are not on your contact list, you can only select not to receive such calls. (Of course, you can also stop using Skype.)

For other things you can do, first would be in Skype, go to Tools-> Options…-> Advanced Settings> Manage other programs’ access to Skype..

Post every program back here that shows in that list.

And after that’s done, go to Skype’s Get more help site. Click through Security & Privacy-> Identity theft/Account takeover. It doesn’t seem likely that anything will come of it, but that’s where you’ll find about as much as you can learn. As already mentioned, you’re using a ‘product’. The product developers are the only ones who can reasonably know what’s going on.

Finally, in a less than totally serious note, such calls wouldn’t seem likely to be sourced from “right-wing freak criminals”. The pattern sounds more like left-wing anarchist criminals.

Tom

By: Hayboy

Hayboy — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:21:20 +0000

I definitely do not have anything on my computer. Even wiping my disc and reformatting does not stop these monsters. Changing my password also does not stop them. These are right-wing freak criminals. Does anyone know how to stop them?

By: TomLiotta

TomLiotta — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:31:44 +0000

You probably can't stop them. If it's happening, particularly any "redirection", it's almost certainly due to some form of virus or other malware on your system. If you are unable to clean your system effectively, you need to have a PC repair shop or a qualified technician do it. And since you are asking about a software product, you need to contact the software vendors for any additional information. The Skype Support forums should help you contact them. -- Tom