Skype Security; Stay safe online.
It's free, fun and easy using Skype to stay in touch with friends and family across the world. Just as in the real world, it’s important that you know how to stay
safe on the internet – both when using Skype and other websites.
In order to stay safe online there are a number of simple steps
that you can take in order to protect yourself. For instance, did you
know it's not recommended to use the same password on multiple sites? Do
you know how to spot a phishing email? What the privacy settings in
Skype do? Please take the time to read these and the other sections on
this page.
Passwords 
Choosing
a secure password to access your Skype account is crucial. Hackers use
lists of common passwords to access accounts (not only on Skype but
across all websites).
It is therefore critical that you use a strong, unique password.
- Use a mixture of letters, numbers and characters - like characters above the numbers on many keyboards such as %, $, £ and !.
- Avoid names as these are easily broken.
- The longer the password is, the stronger it usually is but the harder it is to recall.
- Avoid writing your password down by choosing a password you can remember.
So how can we balance good passwords that need to be long and
complex with the ability for a human to remember them without writing
them down?
There are a number of ways, so why not try some of the following techniques: Use a sentence as your password Passwords are limited to 20 characters but you can create a
difficult password to crack by using a short sentence. Include numbers
in your passwords, so instead of
"MyReallyGoodPassword" try
"MyR3allyG00dPassw0rd".
Include uppercase and lowercase "mypassword" is not as secure as
"MyPaSSworD" so add in a few capitalisations.
Make the password personal to you Your password is something that only you should know and
not something that someone else could easily find out. For instance, a
password that was the name of your dog or a favourite movie are
something that others might know. With the advent of social networking a
lot of personal information is available about you, so try to think of
something that only you know. How about looking outside and describing
something you see
"The River Flowing!" or
"A Yellow caR".
Unique password per site We all have large numbers of websites that we have to
remember our username and password for but not all sites are created
equal. Whilst we at Skype care passionately and invest heavily in your
security, unfortunately not all sites do. So use passwords that are
unique to each website you use in order to prevent any compromise of
those other sites from affecting your Skype account.
Strange and special characters Including in your password punctuation, symbols and other
non standard characters all help to increase the strength of your
password. Take care with spaces however, and only use them in the middle
of your password and not at the beginning or the end. For example,
"I Really L0ve Skype$" and
"^ have a $strong password!!"
Change your password regularly A password should be considered to live for only a short
period of time. Keeping the same password for many years is not
recommended but equally changing it every day might result in making it
hard to remember! So try to change your password as often as practical,
for instance a couple of times a year.
Protecting your computer
Viruses can damage your computer and collect your private data, regardless of whether you are using Skype or not.
Avoid this by following these tips: Most viruses these days come in the form of email attachments so
don't open attachments from people you don't know, or suspicious-looking
attachments even from people you know. When in doubt, always contact
the sender to confirm the email is legitimate, even if it looks harmless
(such as an e-card or funny picture) at first sight.
- Always
use an anti virus program to check the files you
receive from other people, whether by Skype or any other method, even if
you know the sender. And keep it up-to-date and running at all times.
- Use a
personal firewall.
- Make sure you have set your computer to regularly receive the
latest security updates and patches. This is not
just the operating system itself, for instance Microsoft Windows or
Apple Mac OSX but also the applications such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft
Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
- Be careful which sites you choose to visit and download content from too.
Use the official site.
Privacy settings
Some
people are very private, whilst others take to the limelight like ducks
to water. Skype keeps both kinds happy as our privacy levels allow
users to either keep a low profile, or meet new people in the vast Skype
network.
To update your settings on a PC, open Skype and click
Tools >
Options >
Privacy. On a Mac it's
Skype >
Preferences >
Privacy. Here you can set your preferences for receiving communications.
We recommend you do not authorize people whom you do not know and/or do not want to talk to.
Profiles 
Setting
your Skype profile is easy. Your profile acts as your calling card to
millions of other people on Skype. You can add your birthday, gender,
phone numbers and location - all of which help other people find you.
Your email address is securely stored by Skype and not shown to
anyone else. It is used solely to allow friends and family or business
colleagues to search for you in the directory.
Things to remember
- Public parts of your Skype profile can be seen by everyone else on Skype.
- Do not put details in your profile that you do not want to be publicly available.
- You do not have to fill in your profile if you do not want to.
- You can change your profile at any time.
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