Do you know that the most frequently used software's pose a threat to us??
Skype, first introduced in August 2003 and later bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion at any given time approximately runs with 35 million people. DO YOU KNOW IT POSES A THREAT ?
Yes, using Skype might expose your data to hacker. Why? And how?
Skype is a peer to peer network in which voice calls pass over the internet rather than through a special purpose network. Skype users search for other users to connect to, enabling them to search for other Skype users and send them messages. Interestingly, the name Skype derived from the concept "Sky Peer to peer".
What happens in Peer to peer(P2P) networking is that when you wanted to share information with your friends/colleagues , you must open a TCP PORT through the firewall for the P2P software to communicate. And once you open that port you are no longer protected from malicious traffic that comes through. They might send a file, a Trojan in specific and if by chance you download and install it, then your data is open to the hackers. Hacking is so evolved that even if you don't download the file, it may happen as a background process which I posted in
my other blog - RANSOMWARE.
P2P is not so secured and thus the reason why many of the corporate industries don't use Skype unless they have taken precautions. Also P2P can introduce latency.
There are many other VoIP(Voice over IP) software's like uberconference, ooVoo, VSee,Jitsi, Ekiga, Empathy, Nimbuzz, Wechat, Viber, Google hangouts.
There might be a threat from Facebook video chatting as well because it's powered by Skype and hence the P2P.
The torrent software's (bit torrent, u torrent) are other mostly used P2P software's. Take care while using P2P software's.