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Research Group Pushes to Ban Skype
cowmix writes "Hot on the heals of Skype being purchased by Ebay, a research group called Info-Tech just put out a recommendation to its customers that all corporations should ban the use of Skype on their networks. The reports sites a laundry list of issues it feels plagues Skype, most of which will have a familiar ring (ie the normal anti-IM and P2P talking points). Will this cool Skype's rapid progress into the business arena?"
Companies that are already banning peer-to-peer applications, such as instant messaging, should add Skype to its list of unsanctioned software programs
Well no shit, sherlock. If a company feels that IM software (such as AIM or MSN) is a security risk, then of course they should consider Skype a security risk. It's called consistency. This is really a non-issue. New messaging program comes out (which in a way, is what Skype is), companies that ban other messaging programs add it to their ban list. Those that don't ban messaging programs, don't.
This is pretty much a non-article. And it won't slow the proliferation of Skype in the business world, because I doubt companies that banned other IM programs, really needed Info-Tech to tell them to add Skype to the list (I'm sure Info-Tech is just doing it to be consistent as well).
A company recommended that other companies stop using a program. Big whoop, M$ has been recommending that about Linux for years. Sure it may SLOW Skype's progress, but I don't think it'll demolish it by any means. If it really does boost productivity in the corporate world, corporations are unlikely to ban it.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
- Skype is not standards-compliant, allowing it and any vulnerability to
/.ers)
pass through corporate firewalls.
And how would this be different if Skype was standards compliant?
- Skype's encryption is closed source and prone to man-in-the-middle
attacks. There are also some unanswered questions about how well the
keys are managed.
Ooh.. closed source is evil! By this logic, Info-Tech should recommend banning Windows (to the delight, I'm sure, of many
- Enterprises using Skype risk a communication barrier with countries
and institutions that have already banned the service.
Is this a joke? I dunno about you, but I haven't seen any companies completely give up.. what's that thing?.. the telephone in favour of Skype..
Skype is a useful tool. That's all I've got to say about that.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Countries don't ban Skype because of security issues; they ban it to prevent competition with the phone monopoly.
-mkb
The bottom line is that even a mediocre hacker could take advantage of a Skype vulnerability.
1> Has there BEEN any vulnerabilities reported? If not, let's not get carried away and say that the vulnerabilities in Skype (and there ARE vulnerabilities. It's a piece of software that uses the internet, OF COURSE there's vulnerabilities) are easy to use until they've been reported.
2> Will Info-Tech be recommending the banning of Windows anytime soon? After all, any mediocre hacker can take advantage of a Windows vulnerability.
All of the points in the article were valid points.
Not even close to all of the points were valid points. Not even half of them made any sense! And you can't even call TFA an article, it's a friggin' press release.
VOIP, closed source and NAT traversal are hardly anything that your typical business spends any time worrying about. In fact, VOIP, closed source software and NAT traversal is standard operating procedure for most companies (or at least 2 of 3 of them).
This sounds like a direct attack on skype
r ticle.php/3563226 gets relased at virtually the same time.
Replace the word skype with virtually any other software and the article would still be valid.
I feel sick when i read such articles and I feel even sicker when an article like this http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsp/a
I am not a conspiracy theory kind of guy, but why the sudden noise about skype's insecure desgin using the http protocol to work over NAT at the same time that Microsoft and Cisco find a way for SIP to work "securely" over NAT?
Call me paranoid but I find this very weird!
OK, so Skype ISN'T OSS...
So, where'is the best OSS counterpart to Skype?
And [for us] where's something, preferably OSS,
that does IM & VoIP as well as Skype on a closed LAN?
We don't want to lose INTRA-office voice & text contact
whenever the Internet is unavailable or bandwidth to it
is low (eg, in Australia's Outback, & we DON'T want to
pay high Satellite rates to get what we want here
What are our options?
TIA
Hmm, should this be false too? Tom Berson from Anagram laboratories examined skype and wrote:
Read the whole article at http://www.skype.com/security/files/2005-031%20se
Enterprises using Skype risk a communication barrier with countries and institutions that have already banned the service. false
;)).
I particularly like this one. Can anyone think of any communications product that would not risk a communication barrier with countries and institutions that had banned the service?
I can - Skype. If you need to call Fred Smith at Acme Corp, who has banned Skype, then you can call him on Skype Out, or pick up a standard telephone (assuming your company or country has not banned or obsoleted them
Look at SIP.
You can buy proper phone handsets, or use softphones. You use a product like Asterix to link things together like Skype's server do.
Again, look at SIP
Thats all this article seems like is some idiotic consulting firm throwing out a big popular piece of software (skype) and talking it down, when their business is to suggest others. How pathetic can it possibly get? Every program is a security risk. Every program has the potential to be used in a way distracting from an employees work. Most programs, in most workplaces, are closed source nonsense. Stupid, article.
~oid
Skype is not standards-compliant true
Internet Explorer is not standards-compliant (well, the big thing is that they don't actively work to be standards-compliant), but I don't see "research firms" calling for a ban on that.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
- Neither is MS Office (or several other MS products), Adobe Photoshop etc.
- So are several other encryppiton schemes... and a man in the middle attack is in fact easiest to make on a POTS, just connect a speaker to the wire.
- Use SkypeOut, POTS or a cell phone ?
- That seems to be the mantra now : encapsulate everything in HTTP
- Busuness record ? if it is not on paper or other approved medium it is not a valid record... and btw. VoIP on a Cisco CallManager is strictly speaking still just VoIP, so I presume that several large banks have the same problem ?
No, I do not defend Skype, I do however attack Info-Tech's lack of sanity !!As a network manager I'm against Skype. If a problem appears (eg some nasty exploit) then it's going to be like pulling bamboo out of the garden. The only safe method to isolate an organisation is effectively to cut the link to the Internet.
Wrong! - That would be overkill and will only serve as an unsubstantiated threat to bully people into not using Skype without posting a serious argument.
Get real, people. All Skype's ports are well documented and easily verifiable and any serious organization has a central firewall, so just block all traffic on these ports there and Skype is dead. I can do that using just one line of pf-rule so it really isn't hard at all.
You can even go a step futher and block everything except whitelisted ports, maybe even linked to specific IP's. This way there will be no backdoors regardless of how many trojans stupid lusers install on their Windoze boxes. We have used this for years and the few vira that made it though mailscanners were all harmless when it came to external access. Sure the boxes needed a re-install just to be safe but no hackers gained entry, nor was a single spam ever sent out (smtp is of course only allowed to the corporate mailservers (running FreeBSD), and only they can send and receive from the outside world).
No, this article has but one purpose: Scaring management from abandoning expensive big business-run communications in favour of cheaper/free alternatives. The security implications of Skype are no worse than any other closed-source software, the most common OS being one of the worst in itself.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
All this craziness about banning IM and VOIP services within the confines of the corporate walls is even scarier than big brother. It is big brother without any brains behind it. There are several assumptions that are just scary in the notion that employees cannot be trusted. Honestly, this is the real paranoia behind it all isn't it? That you can't trust your employees?
I mean, why don't we ban the use of telephones, cell phones, fax machines, minute taking during meetings, and any contact with your colleagues and customers? I mean, are those devices fully compliant to the pseudo-security mumbo jumbo that these people pretend to affect IM and VOIP? I mean, that's what people do right? Block me from IM, and I SMS my friend, relatives, associates and customers from my mobile. Block me from Skype and I'll just pick up the phone or my mobile.
Could somebody please stop the insanity, and just write up a worldwide memo that people are just not to be trusted? And that any conversations or interactions with other people cannot be permitted without a lawyer and a permanent record. Oh wait a sec, and that record must be reviewed and signed off by all parties with all the relavent disclaimers attached to ensure that nobody's views are deemed accurate?
...in enterprise environments.
1. Even if it is VoIP, it is desentralised. Businesses that implement VoIP generally use so with IP-telephones and IP-telephone centrals. They implement it as they did with old telephones. This makes the calls cheaper, but do not add the flexibility as a software based VoIP solution do.
2. It contains Chat and File Transfer (IM and P2P), causing a knee-jerk reaction to ban it. Both the hacker/pirate/illegal distribution of music, movies and applications, but also uncontrolled transfer of internal confidential information with no audit trail. Even if *we* know that any unfaithful worker can find other ways to steal information, it is a CMA (Cover My A**) procedure among the security folks.
3. The established telecommunication community fight against it, of course. It will eradicate their soft and cushy market. They will be demoted to Layer 1 and 2 communication providers and ruin everything they have worked to do the last 20 years... to spread out and be telecommunication services providers -- not just a provider of commodity products.
Mix these factors together, and you will have a strong lobby for banning Skype.
//Cartoon
No, it dosen't mean it's good, but c'mon, it's more than likely Good Enough (tm). I mean, unless your enemy is the Government of the United States of America (in which case you've got a buttload more to worry about than skype), it's probably good enough to evade even the best haxxors for many, many years--assuming they find anything you say to be particularly interesting.
It's no worse than PSTN, where anyone with a pair of aligator clips can intercept your call with stone age equipment.