Millions of people who use the Skype communications service on Android phones should beware. The company released details on Friday of a serious security flaw that would allow rogue programmes to record the names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, contacts, and chat logs of Skype users on Google's smartphone operating system Android, which is the world's most popular.
In a blog posting, Skype said the flaw allows other programmes on the phone to access the sensitive Skype data and that it was working to patch the vulnerability.
"To protect your personal information, we advise users to take care in selecting which applications to download and install onto their device," the company advised. Skype currently has over 600 million user accounts, though the number of active accounts is thought to be much lower.