Documents: FBI Spyware Has Been Snaring Extortionists, Hackers for Years

A sophisticated FBI-produced spyware program has played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in federal investigations into extortion plots, terrorist threats and hacker attacks in cases stretching back at least seven years, newly declassified documents show. As first reported by Wired.com, the software, called a "computer and internet protocol address verifier," or CIPAV, is designed to infiltrate a target's computer and gather a wide range of information, which it secretly sends to an FBI server in eastern Virginia. "While the technique is of indisputable value in certain kinds of cases, we are seeing indications that it is being used needlessly by some agencies, unnecessarily raising difficult legal questions without any countervailing benefit," reads a formerly-classified March 7, 2002 memo from the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. The documents, which are heavily redacted, do not detail the CIPAV's capabilities, but an FBI affidavit in the 2007 case indicate it gathers and reports a computer's IP address; MAC address; open ports; a list of running programs; the operating system type, version and serial number; preferred internet browser and version; the computer's registered owner and registered company name; the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL.