Citations of Skype in hacking forums increased only among Russian language hackers in the last four years. Skype’s standing fell among Spanish, French and Arabic hacking groups between 20, while it remained the same among English, Chinese and Persian/Farsi speaking hackers during the same period.
That, despite the platform’s lack of end-to-end encryption or forward secrecy features and evidence, courtesy of NSA hacker Edward Snowden, that US spies may have snooped on Skype video calls in recent years.īut Flashpoint data suggests that Skype may be losing its appeal as criminals migrate to more secure alternatives. It ranked among the top five platforms across all language groups. Of those, Microsoft’s Skype was the chat king. The survey results show that, out of a population of around 80 instant messenger platforms and protocols, a short list of just five platforms accounts for between 80% and 90% of all mentions within the cyber underground. Researchers compared data from 20 to observe changes in community preferences. Communications were lumped together based on language community, including Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Farsi and French studied.
The researchers also observed discussions of the relative merits of different messaging services, apparently a popular topic of conversation among cyber criminals. (Yes, we get that this is a questionable assumption.) Flashpoint analysts looked, especially, for invitations to continue conversation outside of cyber criminal marketplaces, like references to ICQ accounts or other platforms. Mentions of different platforms were used as a proxy for gauging interest in and use of these messaging services. To study surveyed mentions of social media platforms in the underground communities monitored by Flashpoint. Skype is the hands-down winner among various online communications options for cyber criminal groups, which have migrated to more secure, encrypted platforms from legacy chat tools like ICQ, Jabber and AOL Instagram in recent years. But when they want to talk shop with their colleagues, they turn to Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and its Skype communications tools, according to an analysis by the firm Flashpoint. In-brief: a survey of cyber criminal groups by Flashpoint revealed that secure messaging apps are becoming more popular, but that security isn’t the only thing motivating online criminals.Ĭyber criminals lurk in the dark recesses of the Internet, striking at random and then disappearing into the virtual ether.
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