Skype Worm Infects Windows PCs

walterbays writes with news of a worm spreading to Windows PCs through Skype's IM. The worm is variously called Ramex.a and Pykspa.d. A poster on a Skype forum explains how to remove it. "After hijacking contacts from an infected machine's Skype software, it sends messages to those people that include a live link. Recipients who blithely click on the URL — which poses as a JPG image but is actually a download to a file with the .scr extension — wind up infected."

Comments

Software diversity is a good thing.

[Joseph Vigneau]

This is a risk of a closed source end-to-end system like Skype. Other, standards-based VoIP technology (ie, SIP and friends) prevents worms like this from propagating. There are plenty of very good alternatives to Skype, but in the end, it seems worse is better.