Skype has confirmed a bug in its software has been sending copies of messages to unintended recipients. So far, just a few users have reported on the Skype support forum a breach that is quite disturbing. They say contacts were receiving snippets from private IM exchanges they weren't involved in.

"Messages sent by one contact (2 lines out of a hundred or so) were sent to another contact of mine," one user wrote. "These 2 contacts are not connected on Skype. The 2 IMs appeared to be sent by me, so the other contact asked me if I sent them by mistake."

The bug could be associated with the latest update ? Skype 5.10.0.115 ? according to reports on the support forum.

Skype says it is investigating the issue and plans to roll out a fix for in the next few days.

In May 2011 Skype suffered a global crash that knocked the service offline for a couple of days. The crash was caused by a botched update.