A hacking consultancy, Pure Hacking, recently revealed a bug in Skype for Mac OS X that could lead to serious ramifications if left unchecked. The bug will allow hackers to easily gain remote control of a user’s system by just sending them a specially manipulated attachment in an instant message. According to the blog, here’s a simplified description of the bug:
“The long and the short of it is that an attacker needs only to send a victim a message and they can gain remote control of the victim’s Mac…It is extremely wormable and dangerous.”
While there are no reports of the vulnerability actively being exploited, Skype has been informed about the issue and will be releasing a fix next week. No additional details about the bug were released, with the hacker saying that he will be keeping it to himself until Skype fixes up the hole. It’s good to know we have these white hat hackers helping people out instead of taking advantage of such problems for personal gain.