Skype Worm Variant Targets Other Instant Messaging Clients
Background: In recent months, there have been a number of so-called "Skype Worms" that have been spread in a similar fashion as an Instant Messaging infection - user is sent malicious link, user clicks link and becomes infected assuming …
Context & Ripple Effects
Skype spent 2006 being argued about rather than attacked: Paul Kedrosky's Fear of a Skype Planet framed the service's explosive reach as an economic phenomenon, while Skype Journal argued Skype had a shot at leading IM federation by virtue of its scale. Both treated Skype's contact graph as an asset.
The SpywareGuide Greynets Blog's report flips that framing: the 'Skype worm' family — malicious links clicked by trusting contacts — has produced a variant that no longer confines itself to Skype but targets other instant messaging clients too. The distribution channel analysts admired is now visibly portable across networks.
First-order effects
- Users who run multiple IM clients face the same link-click infection path regardless of which network the message arrives on, collapsing the assumption that staying off Skype keeps them safe.
Second-order effects
- If worms hop between IM networks via shared contact lists, every provider's security posture becomes partly dependent on its neighbors' — which directly complicates the federation ambitions Skype Journal outlined in 2006, since interconnection widens the attack surface along with the reach.
Third-order effects
- Malware treating IM rosters as free distribution infrastructure pushes client vendors toward built-in link scanning and reputation filtering as table-stakes features, shifting IM security from per-network defense to a shared-channel problem.
The trend: Instant messaging worms are evolving from single-network nuisances into cross-network threats that ride contact graphs wherever they lead.