For years, FBI has denied firstly, the existence of secret tool and then the usage of it. In 2001, FBI started working on a remotely installable keylogger known as “Magic Lantern” and in 2002 confirmed its existence but denied the deployment.
In 2005, FBI made prolific use of the Magic Lantern against harassment, extortion, identity theft, but officially confirmed its usage only in 2007 official documents submitted to the court. It became part of CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier) in the year 2007, the use of CIPAV remains illegal even in 2013.
This process of activation can infiltrate through email attachments and work through remote installations. It is even capable of installing a Trojan Horse on target computer and taking over the PGP password. CIPAV and Magic Lantern can both steal the following
: A list of open TCP and UDP ports.
: A list of running programs.
: The default internet browser and version.
: IP address.
: The current Logged-in user name.
: MAC address of Ethernet Cards.
: The last visited URL.
It is not easy to get rid of Magic Lantern, even McAfee and Norton have agreed to leave a backdoor for Trojan. But, F-secure refused to leave backdoor for Magic Lantern. Wonder, why FBI has kept Magic Lantern under wraps for so long.
