Protecting your online safety, security and privacy in Skype

Below are guidelines specific to Skype’s consumer products and software. Skype for Business, Microsoft Corporation’s online service and product, are not covered.

What you can do to stay safe

Report a Computer Security Vulnerability if you discover a security vulnerability in one of our Skype apps or online services.

You can protect your account by taking the following steps.

The password

Your Skype account should be protected by a strong password. You should use a strong, unique password (not only for Skype, but for all websites) to prevent hackers from accessing your account.

• Try to use a combination of letters, numbers, and characters – such as the characters seen above the numbers on many keyboards. It is important to include punctuation, symbols, and other non-standard characters in your password to increase its strength.

• It is recommended to avoid the use of names, birthdays, and dictionary words, since these are easy to guess and hack.

• Stronger passwords typically have a longer length – but they are harder to recall. To save yourself from writing down passwords, choose a password you can remember.

Creating strong passwords and remembering them can be difficult. You can help yourself by using the following techniques:

Use a sentence as your password

To create a password that’s hard to crack, use a short sentence.

If you want to create a secure password, make sure it contains numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters. The example below would be “theanswerismars” and “th3answer1smars*”

Make the password personal to you

Someone else shouldn’t be able to find your password easily, as it should only be known by you. A dog’s name or your favorite movie are examples of things others may know about you – especially with social networking making it so easy to share information about yourself.

Then try describing something you see outside (“A Yellow Car!” or “The River Flowing!” ), and then follow our suggestions:
“Th3Riv3rFl0wing*” or “4Y3lloWcar.$”

Use a unique password for each site

Many of us have a lot of accounts, websites, and usernames to remember, but not all websites are the same. In spite of the fact that Skype cares deeply about your security and invests heavily in it, not all sites do the same. In order to prevent any compromise of your Skype account affecting your other sites, make sure that you use a password that is unique to each website you use.

In order to find out if they can gain access to high-value accounts like Skype, mail providers, and social networking sites, attackers often verify stolen accounts from other websites against high-value accounts from other websites.

Change your password regularly

However, it is still important to change your password on a regular basis despite the fact that you use a strong password.

Should you suspect that your password has been compromised in the past, it is important to change it as soon as possible.

Changing your Skype password as soon as possible or changing the password you use for another website or service with the same or similar password is the best way to protect your account if your password is compromised.

Making sure that your computer is protected

You can still become a victim of viruses even if you do not use Skype. The following tips will help you avoid this:

• Any attachment in an e-mail, regardless of whether it is a friend’s or a stranger’s, should always be opened with caution. Even if it appears harmless at first glance (such as an e-card or humorous picture), you should always contact the person who sent you the email to confirm that it is genuine.

• To ensure that files you receive from others are safe, you should always use an antivirus program to ensure their security – regardless of whether the sender is familiar with you. Keeping your antivirus program up-to-date and running is essential.

• Protect your computer with a personal firewall.

• Keeping your computer up to date with all the latest security updates and patches is the best way to prevent it from being compromised. This includes updating your operating system (such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X) as well as all applications (such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Internet Explorer) automatically.

• In choosing a website to visit or to download content from, you should take care to make sure that the source is reliable. The official site is always the best place to go.

You can learn more about using the internet safely by visiting InSafe or Get Safe Online.
The content of external websites is not the responsibility of Skype.

Updating Skype as often as possible

Whenever Skype makes improvements, such as enhancing quality, improving reliability, and improving security, it is always striving to improve. Skype’s latest version can be updated by following these steps.

It is always a good idea to be very wary of any email that purports to be from Skype suggesting that there is a security update available – this is something we will NEVER do.

It is recommended that you only download Skype from https://www.skype.com (or from the App store on mobile devices) and not from any other website. We do not distribute Skype through any other site.

Privacy settings

Skype lets you control who is able to contact you through its privacy settings.

Learn more about who can see your Skype profile information.

In his profile

It is important to note that certain information in your Skype profile can be viewed by anyone, while other information can only be seen by your contacts. Find out who has access to your information, as well as what you can do to protect your privacy.

Avoiding online fraud 

Whenever a website or merchant claims that they are reselling Skype products on their website, it is crucial that you do some research before giving out your credit card information.

You can buy Skype Credit and subscriptions directly from the Skype website.

Don’t respond to emails asking for credit card information, passwords, or other personal information. Such data will never be requested by Skype via email. You may be requested to provide details about your payment/order or tracking number for your ticket, but your full credit card information or your password will never be requested by our Customer Service agents.

By contacting Skype support, you can report any resellers or parties misrepresenting themselves as Skype or who are acting illegally.

The phishing scam

An example of phishing is when someone, who is posing to be a trusted company or website, tries to acquire sensitive information by pretending to be another company or website, such as a username, password or credit card number.

An example of this would be an email sent to you in which you are given the impression that it is from Skype, asking you to click on a link and sign in to your account. In some cases, the link might redirect you to a fake website that looks and feels exactly like Skype, but the personal information you enter there can be stored, stolen, and used for malicious purposes if the site has a malicious agenda.

Vigilance is your best line of defense against phishing attacks. Despite spam and other email filters becoming more and more effective, it is still possible for some phishing emails to get through the filters. Increasing your awareness of phishing techniques, and being alert to their attempts, and taking steps to stop them are some simple steps you can take to stop them in their tracks.

In the event that you receive an email stating that your account has been compromised, or an imperative like “Confirm your account details” or its equivalent, beware of this false sense of urgency. Do not follow any links in an email you receive that asks you to perform an action on your account. Do not click any links in emails asking you to perform an action. You are better off typing skype.com in to your browser and going straight to your account on the Skype website rather than using another website.

It is recommended that you do not open any attachments included in an email that appears to have been sent by Skype and that contains an attachment.

Make sure that the website you are visiting contains the word skype.com in the URL, if you have arrived at it through a link or other redirection. The web address must not contain any other characters or words within it. In the case of notskype.com or skype1.com, both web addresses are invalid and cannot be used.

You should change your password as soon as you suspect that your account has been hacked, or even if you think your account has been compromised for any reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How safe and secure is Skype?

Voice, video, file transfers, as well as instant messages between Skype users are all encrypted in transit between Skype users. By doing this, you will be protected from malicious users who could be listening in on your conversations.

Can my Skype account be hacked?

It is possible that you have noticed that your file sharing is being accessed by unauthorized users, unauthorized charges are being incurred, or spam is being sent to your contact list. You may have been hacked or your account has been compromised if this happens to you. In the past few days, you may have received a message informing you that you must help us secure your account when trying to sign into Skype.

Can you make a Skype profile private?

Choose Settings from the menu. Select the Account & Profile option. Click on the picture that you wish to use as your profile picture. Make sure you choose Public or only contacts under Choose who can see your profile picture at the bottom of the page.

Which is safer Skype or zoom?

In addition to encrypting all communications from end to end, Skype also has a solid reputation for security. There are two types of encryption provided by Zoom: TLS encryption and AES-256 encryption.

How do I know if someone is calling me on Skype?

You will soon be able to see the name of the caller at the top of the screen and the option to answer the call will appear at the bottom of the screen as soon as the person begins calling you. Choose “Audio” from the list of icons. Located at the bottom of the screen on a white background with a green phone icon, you can see it in the lower right corner.

All images and contents credit goes to supportskype.com