Trojan.PeskySpy: Bugging Your Skype Calls?

How would you like for your conversations via Skype VoIP to be recorded and sent to a hacker?

As with any new and promising technology, there comes the inevitable promise that it will become the target of malicious code authors. Such is the case with the transmission technology for delivery of voice communications over IP networks, such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks, more commonly known as Voice over IP (or VoIP).

With VoIP gaining more and more popularity, it should be no surprise that eventually there would be a malware targeting this impressive form of communication. In just this past week alone we have seen the arrival of a Trojan horse called Trojan.PeskySpy. This new trojan is specifically designed to target Skype VoIP communications.
How it works is that Trojan.PeskySpy will create an MP3 of a voice call and later transmit this from the infected computer, to an unauthorized user at a remote server. Mp3 files, as you already may know, are relatively small files. Not many computer users would notice the creation of one additional mp3 file. An explanation of what exactly is happening was offered by Symantec reading the following:

"What this threat is doing is actually grabbing the sound coming from the audio devices plugged into the computer. It does this by hooking various Windows API calls that are used in audio input and output. It then is able to intercept all audio data traveling between the Skype process and the underlying audio device. The extracted audio data is then saved to .mp3 files and stored on the computer."

Researchers were quick to point out, however, that the existence of this new "wiretap Trojan" isn't due to any problems with Skype itself. In this instance, Skype is a target mainly to due it's popularity. It is one of the most used VoIP applications available. More than likely we will be seeing this kind of threat in the future, targeting other VoIP applications.

As alarming as this news might seem, security researchers continue to downplay the immediate danger. Some security research firms have commented on the situation to say that it doesn't see this particular attack gaining much of a foothold in the real world, and Trojan.PeskySpy does not appear to contain any method by which it can spread from one computer to another.

What should be made aware is that, in the future, we will probably be seeing variations on this Trojan theme. Keeping this in mind, it is recommended that you simply continue to employ the same protection you have always used against malware. Namely, keeping all software applications up-to-date and utilizing either an antivirus or antispyware application to detect and remove threats such as Trojan.PeskySpy.