The Members Forum

he Skype client for Apple Mac computers has a zero-day vulnerability that allows an attacker to gain remote control of a victim's Mac, according to a security researcher.

Skype was alerted to the vulnerability about a month ago but has yet to issue a fix, Gordon Maddern reported Friday on the Pure Hacking blog.

Since the publication of Maddern's findings, Skype has promised a fix "early next week," according to ZDNet UK.

"We are aware of this and will release a fix early next week to resolve the issue. We take our users' privacy very seriously and are working quickly to protect Skype users from this vulnerability," Skype wrote in an email to the website.

After accidently discovering the vulnerability in a Skype chat with a colleague, Maddern said he successfully tested the "extremely wormable and dangerous" exploit on more Macs but found that Skype's Windows and Linux clients were not affected.

The security researcher then used penetration testing tools and was able to remotely take over a Mac through the Skype vulnerability, he said.

Maddern said he contacted Skype to alert them to the issue but decided to publish the basic facts of his discovery because "that was over a month ago and there still has not been a fix released."

"Pure Hacking won't give specifics on how to perform this attack until a patch from Skype is released. However we will give a full disclosure after Skype takes action or a reasonable responsible disclosure time," he said.

Skype Limited, the developer of the VoIP software, is based in Luxembourg. The company was founded in 2003 and released the first public beta version of Skype that same year. Skype accounted for 13 percent of all international call minutes in 2010, according to TeleGeography Research.

PC Mag has the details HERE!