The big fear is that the PC - ostensibly an enterprise node with private company files and communications stored on it - could become a Skype SuperNode.
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When Skype users download the software, they must consent to the usage agreement that includes a provision allowing Skype to commandeer their PC and its resources.
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We tried a number of commercial firewalls, configurations and even IPSs, which work based on many higher-level traffic-analysis techniques, and we could not prevent Skype from successfully establishing quality VoIP phone calls. Skype works through firewalls and symmetric NATs (where a unique external IP address is associated with each internal user). What should concern IT departments about Skype is not so much the danger to security but the fact that it can't be controlled. Of course, if a few dozen internal users are concurrently running Skype calls, this could eat up a T-1's worth of bandwidth. This is not a lot, and is typical of an efficient WAN-oriented VoIP vocoding, such as G.729.
![skype call test call skype call test call](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Md8CnDsJy_8/maxresdefault.jpg)
![skype call test call skype call test call](https://www.pei.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Skype_test-call.jpg)
A Skype voice call uses 33K to 46Kbps of bandwidth in each direction. But any standard anti-virus protection on your PC or laptop should be able to spot and stop these.īandwidth is not a big concern either. But as we go to press, we believe that Skype poses more worries about what isn't known than actual security concerns.īecause Skype is largely a point-to-point protocol service, the person you call, or who calls you, can infect communications to you with, say, worms or viruses. Of course, next week some vulnerability might be exploited. We also conducted a dozen private interviews with hackers, enterprise network managers and leading network-security-equipment suppliers, none of which could cite one case of Skype being exploited for insidious security assaults. Our testing shows that neither Skype VoIP nor Skype Instant Messaging poses any readily exploitable security threat. We also tracked the effect of Skype operations, in terms of CPU and memory use, on laptops. We evaluated the security of Skype Instant Messaging and file transfer, along with the internetworking of Skype 1.4 and 2.0 beta. We assessed the state of the encryption and security of the Skype messages and streams, looking for exposed information that could be useful to hackers and susceptible to man-in-the-middle interception and diversion tactics. We then captured and analyzed Skype setups and Real-time Transport Protocol streams of VoIP calls in various environments, through numerous firewall and intrusion-prevention system (IPS) configurations, between enterprise and residential Skype endpoints, and between subnets on the same enterprise network. Our testing began with capturing and analyzing network traffic while downloading Skype 1.4 (the current version) and a beta version of Skype 2.0 onto various laptops and PCs sitting on public IPs and behind NAT firewalls. Few of these operational aspects are published (see what is published in the official "Skype Guide for Network Administrators").Īnd with more than 4 million online users at any given time, one can assume that Skype has permeated many enterprise networks. It can work through virtually any network address translation ( NAT)-based firewall. It dynamically morphs traffic characteristics.