Reports by Sophos warn that Skype users should be on their guard against malicious instant messages being sent through the popular VOIP service.
Skype allows users to connect for free over video/voice but also acts as a popular messenger client. The malicious worm uses the Skype API to spam out messages like the one below:
lol is this your new profile pic? http://goo.gl/[REDACTED]?img=[USERNAME]
If the user follows the link it leads to an malicious ZIP file usually called either skype_06102012_image.zip or skype_08102012_image.zip.
The zip file contains a Trojan horse which opens a backdoor, allowing a hacker to take control of infected PCs, communicating with a remote server via HTTP.
This is likely to lead to the PC to be attached to a botnet and could fall victim to a ransomware attack. In recent months infected PC’s have been used to launch huge denial of services attacks against corporate and government targets.
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