Skype Patches Recently Discovered Security Flaws

In the first case, a security bug in the Skype for Windows means the software can be crashed and forced to execute arbitrary code through a buffer overflow when presented with malformed URLs in the Skype-specific URI format callto:// and skype://. Skype can also be made to execute arbitrary code via the importation of a maliciously formated VCARD (an electronic business card format).

A second security vulnerability is not restricted to Windows PCs and hits Skype across all supported platforms. Here a heap-based buffer overflow security is the culprit but the upshot is the same as the Windows specific bug - hackers might be able to take over vulnerable systems, at least in theory. At the time of writing, neither of the security bugs is subject to either publicly available exploits or malicious code.