A vulnerability was found in Skype that Microsoft could not fix

For many people Skype has become an indispensable assistant both in work and in communication with relatives. Indeed, the program has a number of useful features and allows you to communicate face to face with a person who is in another part of the world. But, as it turned out, it was not without a "fly in the ointment". It seems that security is not the strong point of the program.The fact is that the independent security researcher Stefan Kantak discovered a serious vulnerability in the update mechanism of the popular messenger. Attackers, with its help, can get full access rights to the victim's system and run all kinds of malware on the computer, as well as steal or delete important data. Interestingly, the vulnerability was discovered back in September 2017. Of course, Stephan alerted Microsoft about his finding, but as it turns out, the breach is not so easy to fix. Despite the fact that the company was able to reproduce the problem, it turned out that in order to fix it, it was necessary to almost completely rewrite Skype code. It is reported that the vulnerability found poses a threat not only to Skype for Windows, but also to macOS and even Linux. Of course, Microsoft assures that they threw all their efforts into fixing the flaw, but it is unlikely to happen in the near future: rewriting the program code takes time and such serious changes can only be expected in a new version of the client, but not in the security update. And for those who want to stay in touch with family and friends, but fear for the safety of their data, we can recommend trying Skype analogues, such as ooVoo, Google Duo, or other messengers that support video communication.