Why are Skype accounts getting hacked so easily?

If you’ve received a weird message on Skype with a link to Baidu or LinkedIn recently, you’re not alone. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve received spam links to Baidu from six of my Skype contacts, one of whom works for Microsoft’s PR agency and another is a former Microsoft employee. All were surprised to see their accounts breached, and some believed they were protected by Microsoft’s two-factor authentication. That wasn’t the case, though.

A thread on Microsoft’s Skype support forums reveals this has been occurring to hundreds of Skype users since at least August. Breached Skype accounts are used to send thousands of spam messages before they’re locked and the owners have to regain access. Skype has fallen victim to similar attacks before, and hackers were able to spoof messages on the system last year after using lists of stolen usernames and passwords to gain access to accounts.