Emoji kittens are the latest trouble mongers in the string of Skype vulnerabilities discovered over the past 3 years. Presently, most small and medium scale enterprises rely on Skype for business communication. In fact, there is no dearth of Multinationals that count on Skype Businesses, in order to connect with their counterparts.
What is Emoji Kittens?
The Emoji Kittens is a Denial of Service (DoS) attack that is easy to launch and does not require any specialized skills, after a successful launch, this attack can render the Skype application non-responsive. For how long? Well, that depends on the gravity and duration of the attack.
According to SEC, this attack would “cause a client’s CPU usage to go through the roof”.
So, this increase in the processor’s usage causes it to hang. The foremost threat associated with this DoS attack is its simplicity and the fact that it does not require any specialized IT skills to jam up a board meeting. On the contrary, it is as simple as shooting hundreds of Emojis to launch this DoS attack.
How to mitigate it?
This vulnerability primarily affects Skype for Business 2016 and earlier versions; Windows users; Office 365 ProPlus 2013 and before and MS Lync 2013 or before. If you use one of these, then there are certain ways to manage this vulnerability.
First and foremost, you need to download the concerned patch to fix it. Whether you are an Independent Contractor or a Tech Support Executive for a Business that relies on Skype, here’s the easy fix. Microsoft has recently issued a patch that can fix the CVE-2018-8546 issue.