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VoIP Darling Skype Divulges Flaws In All Clients: Page 4 of 5

"They're risky because they've not [yet] faced the same level of scrutiny as other protocols," he said.

"Voice is the most mission critical application in business," he added. "Any time you make changes to voice, jobs and careers are on the line."

In fact, Gartner has recommended that business steer clear of Internet telephony solutions like Skype, citing security as the basis of its concern. "We advise businesses not to use Skype, because it uses port 443 or port 80, which should be used for SSL and HTTP [respectively]. Companies that allow Skype have more lax firewall policies than are desirable."

eBay, which two weeks ago closed on its acquisition of Skype, did not respond to a call for comment on the VoIP vulnerabilities.

Coincidentally, Tuesday also marked the public debut of Skype Groups, a business-centric service aimed at smaller firms which want to manage multiple Skype users under one master account.