[cory79]

Hello
I am an admin for a small company of 60 users and the "Big Wig" recently discovered Skype which he uses for personal use. I was told to download this free software on all of our PC's. Since I never just go out and download something that I don't have any knowledge of I checked out the website. From what I gathered this is a P2P software. I did some more digging around and am getting conflicting information about the security of this software. We do have a firewall, anti-spyware, anti-virus ect... but I still do not feel like this is a safe product to use on a business network. What do you guys think?? I would love any and all advice. Thanks in advance for any help.

[ferrija1]

Did you look at these pages? There's some good information here.

http://www.skype.com/security/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security

[Stoner]

Hi cory79.

I don't use Skype, but I was involved in a discussion here at TSG over it because it is p2p .
I found that Skype goes through a firewall without being challenged. Essentially it bypasses detection.
That seems like a weakness for security and in a business setting, I'd be darned sure it's not an important issue.
There also seems to be some issue about Skype reading and storing the Bios info and Motherboard ID

This was the thread:
http://forums.techguy.org/civilized-...-confused.html

[cory79]

Thank you so much for your responses. My other concern is bandwidth. Skypes eula includes a statement along the lines that skype can utilise our bandwidth for other users and since we have a T1 line I feel like it would bog down our network. Also I have heard that it can turn our server into a supernode which is definitely a major security issue for me. Thanks again for any help in advance, you all ROCK!