Skype Update - R2Pleasent

Hello everyone,

Last week my Skype was hijacked by a user social engineering Skype Live Support into changing the registered email on my account. The Skype account used fake information, a secret email, and my computer was completely secure. Despite these measures, Skype support reset the email for them. I do not know exactly why or how, but it happened.

This shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but it reinforces the fact that Skype logins are completely insecure. I've since regained control of the Skype account, and it SHOULD now be secure due to my discussions with Support. I am skeptical still, only time will tell if that is true.

This problem was amplified by the fact that I was out of town. I apologize to anyone affected by this hack; I did whatever I could given my means at the time to alert the community. We once again would like to encourage all members of the Sythe community to read the notices posted on repayment requirements. Always ask for a Sythe PM. Always read the Sythe PM carefully. Always assume the worst, it's the safest way to operate.

Our service continues to run and I am now back home. Please let me know if you were affected by the hacking and I will look into the case.

Cheers,

Will (R2Pleasent Founder)

 

Thanks for update R2

 

Shame to see alot of skype hacks going round recently,

Thanks for the update

 

Welcome back bud

 

Would it help if you contacted Skype directly prior to any "hackings" and told them to put some kind of note on your account saying that you will only ever request a email/password change if you include a determined "passcode" help at all?

That way if a new Skype agent was to open your account information they could see the note telling them not to give any information if the passcode was not presented.

 

What if the hacker was the one to place this measure on the account? I don't think they can do that really. As long as someone fulfills their criteria for a password reset they'll do it.

 

Right - but I do know that usually under customer profiles there is an option for support agents to add notes. My suggestion is perhaps when you FIRST create a new profile explain to the agent that you are a popular seller and that you would like for this "note" to be added.

This would be done long before the "hacker" ever knew what the Skype ID was which could prevent damages.

 

Notes on your account are definitely a good way to go, Drento, but it seems certain agents still overlook them.

 

Which is too bad because otherwise their security isn't all that bad. Best of luck with keeping your future Skype's safe R2/Will.

 

>.> always find stuff like this very sketchy, how in the hell could you get hacked like tht/

 

It's a method of social engineering where the "hacker" convinces the Skype support agent that he/she is the controller of the Skype account and gets him to change the password/email for them.

 

Register a Skype account through a Microsoft outlook account and it will greatly decrease the risk.

 

Not being funny R2Pleasent, YOU know skype isn't secure but you still continue to support trading via skype putting you and your customers at risk of being scammed..

Sure you have all your customers on skype and what not, but wouldn't it make life easier if you used something else.

And yes I understand that 99% of platforms can be hacked/social engineered/by-passed etc, but the fact still remains skype is piss poor.

Just a thought, why don't you support trading via the SYTHE CHAT, not only will this bring activity to this site feature, it will also provide a secure measure for trading. As only you can log into sythe.

 

You raise some good points. Ultimately, Sythe chat is still not able to fill the void of Skype. It needs to be similar to Facebook chat to be useful. That is, anyone online on Sythe forums is available to chat. The system right now requires a separate login and is quite glitchy.

Also, probably 75% of my trades are with users who don't use Sythe. Unfortunately, even with Sythe chat, I'd still be unable to communicate with the majority of my customer base.

If you look at my signature, it has a big "I DO NOT TRADE VIA SKYPE" warning. You'll also be surprised to know, that has been sitting in my signature since before I was hacked. So I have been an advocate against people using Skype as a confirmation tool for awhile now.

 

Wow, if this was on Skype's behalf that's just disgusting, especially if your customers lost a lot of money.

 

Fucked then :/.... Surely there are measures to avoid being social engineered like using fake data, or wouldn't contacting skype and seeing what they suggest?

 

Not only was all the data fake, I made the email account specifically for Skype (and never revealed it / used it for anything else), so there is no way the hacker could have even known what email was associated with the account.

 

It seems to me, no matter the fail-safes put in place by the skype users the live chat employees are clearly not being trained sufficiently enough to catch these sort of things. Just sounds like a bunch of human error by the live chat/support employees. It's quite sad since theirs literally nothing you can do.

 

they could be bribing somebody on skypes customer support i bet the pays shit and a thew hundred via w/u for resetting an email would be appealing to them

 

This has been rumoured to be true. If so, then it explains a lot.