Intellectual Property Law

Code for Skype Spyware Released to Thwart Surveillance

By Kim Zetter

A Swiss programmer who crafted malware for intercepting and recording Voice-over-IP phone calls has posted the source code online to draw attention to vulnerabilities in programs such as Skype, and to make it harder for law enforcement to surreptitiously use the malware for surveillance, according to Tech World.

Ruben Unteregger, 33, wrote the code for “MiniPanzer” and “MegaPanzer” in 2006 for his former employer, ERA IT Solutions. The company allegedly sold the malware to Swiss authorities to be used for surveillance.

Once installed on a machine, the malware hooks into Window’s audio drivers, thus bypassing Skype’s proprietary encryption. It then records the victim’s VoIP calls as MP3s, which are sent to a remote server for an eavesdropper to collect. The programs were developed to work on Windows XP, but Unteregger said in an interview published last week that the programs likely would work with other Windows operating systems as well.

Unteregger, who said he retained copyright for the programs, released the source code and two compiled binaries last week so that anti-virus companies could write signatures to detect the malware and frustrate efforts by authorities to secretly plant the programs on targeted computers.

Days after Unteregger released his code, Symantec and TrendMicro announced that their anti-virus programs had already detected copies of a Skype trojan in the wild, which appears to resemble Unteregger’s programs.

Full post as published by Threat Level on August 31, 2009 (boomark / email).