ICQ lacks secure barriers against hijacking, spoofs, and other hostile programs that can listen in on personal, and potentially sensitive, communications sent over the system. Each day, more than 3 million people use ICQ to send quick and easy text messages to friends and coworkers over the Internet.
Messages appear instantaneously in a window on the users' desktops.
More than 12 million users are registered with ICQ, and the program is gaining popularity in corporate settings as a productivity tool for office workers, such as for exchanging information like sales figures. Wired News delivered to your inbox or hand-held device. Lots of Theories BioPort Files for Anthrax Drug OK Jesse Schachter, an engineer with Advanced Corporate Networking, said that a former employer, an Internet service provider, used ICQ for all internal communications. But that's bad news, according to Greg Jones, a freelance network-security expert familiar with the program. Once compiled and run, the program will allow anyone to take over an ICQ account and assume another user's identity.