Can computer viruses be transmitted over a silent voice mail message on Skype?

There’s a first time for everything. Leaving you a “silent” voice mail is one computer sending a digital file to yours, which is how a virus spreads. I’d run a scan to hunt for a possible virus, and not open any vmails from people you don’t know.

My OS is Windows XP. If I right-click on the file name, the menu gives me an option to scan it for viruses.

When in doubt, throw it out. Or in this case delete it.

As @zenvelo said its a file being sent to you and if you open it, it could potentially have a virus in it. I wouldn’t risk it personally.

And what the hell is with the influx of these BS shoe spam messages. I’m seeing it on two other sites I frequent too.

When in doubt, scan the file, or the whole computer.

However, if you can’t do that, then I’d say that you are most likely not at risk. In order for a virus to spread, it must be contained in executable code. Audio files (MP3, Wave, etc.) are not executable files, and they are never executed. There is always a second program that will use that file as its data source, and produce sound.

That being said, I don’t know sort of data is sent over Skype. If it were a bare audio file sent over an email-like system, then there is no risk of infection; however, there might be more than a bare audio file.

@PhiNotPi Yea I’m not sure about Skype but I know when I was younger in my hacking years I used to be able to send a virus attached to a picture. The other person didnt even have to run any sort of exe, just opening the picture was enough to give me an in.

This article showed up on The Register today about hiding messages in silent Skype calls

@mrentropy Thank you very much. That’s very interesting.