Skype bugging your network? Here's how to squash it

By Stuart Corner
Sunday, 26 November 2006 10:27

Business IT - Technology

The Skype peer-to-peer protocol is designed to penetrate firewalls: experts emphasise the potential security risks of the Skype peer-to-peer protocol and say the use of Skype in a corporate network significantly increases traffic volumes. One company claims to have some tools to stop it.

German company, ipoque specialises in application- and user-aware traffic management and analysis systems. Its line of hardware traffic managers for gigabit and fast ethernet is claimed to provide "effective control of undesired network applications [including] file sharing in peer-to-peer networks, instant messaging and VoIP, including Skype."

Skype 3.0 was released in beta on November 9 and according to Klaus Degner, chief software architect of ipoque, "Changes in the Skype 3.0 client probably have been made as an answer to detection mechanisms recently implemented by various vendors...[and] the announced stable release of this new version will attract many Skype users - both in private and business environments."

ipoque says it has updated its PRX traffic managers and they are now capable of detecting and - if necessary - blocking the latest Skype version. According to ipoque its PRX traffic managers operate as transparent bridges and are easy to integrate in existing network infrastructures without configuration changes. "Based on its layer 7 deep packet inspection technology, ipoque offers its customers control over applications that are beyond the reach of legacy firewalls and undesired or even dangerous in the corporate network," the company claims.