Skype Will Now Hide IP Addresses By Default

When you’re playing a game online, sometimes players on the losing team might not be particularly gracious. While you might meet many who hurl verbal abuse at you, there are some who go that extra distance by searching for your Skype ID and IP address, in which they can then DDoS you, or worse, find your location and SWAT you.

The good news is that for gamers and streamers, Microsoft is taking extra precaution and have recently announced that they will now hide your IP address on Skype by default. Prior to this, IP addresses were freely available. Microsoft then introduced the ability to hide them, but they will now be hidden by default so gamers who are unfamiliar with the feature won’t need to do anything on their end.

According to Skype, “We have recently introduced the ability to hide a Skype user’s IP address and we’ve set this as a default status in the latest versions of Skype. Starting with this update to Skype and moving forward, your IP address will be kept hidden from Skype users. This measure will help prevent individuals from obtaining a Skype ID and resolving to an IP address.”

Users will need to get the latest version of Skype to take advantage of this feature, so if you haven’t updated your Skype yet, you can go ahead and do so. This also applies to the mobile version of the app, so you’ll want to update those as well if you haven’t done so already.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones, Computers
Tags: Apps, Privacy, Skype