Skype encryption flawed

Posted by Eric Jacksch on May 30, 2011 in News, Privacy, Security | 0 comments

University of North Carolina researchers have demonstrated that the encryption system used by Skype – and presumably other VoIP products – is flawed and leaks data.  In summary, patterns in packet sizes appear to be sufficient to perform linguistic analysis.  According to New Scientist, the researchers were able to decrypt 2.3 percent of conversations and accuracy is expected to increase.

There is good reason that high-end cryptographic devices offer features such as maintaining a constant data rate independent of the data being encrypted. It sounds like Skype might want to also incorporate some of those features.