Skype has acknowledged a bug that is affecting users in pretty much the most horrifying way possible. Instant messages sent over Skype are being sent to random contacts—even contacts you've never connected with before.
Here's Skype's official statement on the matter:
"We are aware that in rare circumstances IM's between two contacts could be sent to an unintended third contact. We are rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype."
Now, we totally expect Skype to figure this mess out. But this is really, really troubling. This might be overly reductive, but there are just a few main reasons to have someone in your Skype contact list: Work-related contacts, long-distance family contacts, and sexytime partners. You don't want any kind of overlap in that Venn diagram, at all, ever—especially not at random.
So until Skype gives the all clear, it's definitely best if you keep the IMs off of Skype. [Engadget via TNW]
Update: Skype has updated its statement on the bug, and it's rolling out patches to fix the issue. So far, Windows and Linux are live, with more to come. Here's the statement:
Based on recent Skype customer community posts and our own investigation over the past couple of days, we have identified a bug that we are working hard to fix. This issue occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user.
Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs. At Skype, our customer experience is paramount and we are working hard to release fixes for impacted clients within the next several days.
The Skype clients impacted include: Skype 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5.8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone. We urge all Skype customers to download the latest client as soon as they are notified that any update, including this fix, is available.
We sincerely apologize to our community for any inconvenience.