Skype security flaw allows for easy spying on Android users

Did you ever wish that you could just spy on someone via Skype? Well, apparently now you can. Multiple recent reports are claiming that you can literally force an Android device to answer your call and the owner of the said device might not even be aware of what you’re up to. In short, you can call someone and just answer that call yourself by exploiting a security flaw found within the program. Needless to say, it’s really easy to eavesdrop on someone this way, although there is a catch which makes this not exactly the most inconspicuous way of trying to spy. The Skype interface pops up for both parties when you connect to an Android device, so if the user is looking at their device when you’re calling the jig is pretty much up.

As for how this works, a lot of users who noticed this security flaw went on Reddit to describe their experience with it. One user who goes by the name of Ponkers explains that you merely have to call someone on Skype and then immediately hang up. Then, the device you just called will automatically call you back and you can just answer it to commence the eavesdropping. As mentioned, if the user you’re calling happens to be looking at their phone right then, they will definitely know that something fishy is going on and will probably just hang up on you. This only works on the Android version of Skype apparently, or at least we haven’t heard similar reports coming from iOS users for now.

As far as we can tell this problem is entirely on Skype’s part, so there’s not much you can do to fix it, save for uninstalling Skype of course. We don’t know if the company is already aware of the issue at this time, but if they’re not, they soon will be as more and more Android users are reporting the problem. Let’s hope they can find a fix for it soon.