Skype has said they are aware of, and will patch, an odd bug that created a privacy issue by sending instant messages to a completely different party. The bug itself is buried somewhere within the massive amounts of client code, and is only triggered during a crash.
The issue, according to a notice from Skype’s Leonas Sendrauskas issued on Monday, only happens when a user’s Skype client crashes during an IM session. When this happens, some users may have the last IM entered or sent just before the crash delivered to an entirely different user.
For example, imagine the impact of a racy message to your significant other being delivered to your boss.
“Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs,” the notice explains, adding that they are “working hard” to fix it.
Skype 5.9 and 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5.8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone, Skype 2.8 for Android, and Skype 4.0 for iOS are all impacted by the bug.