WikiLeaks just released CIA documents about installing Russian-origin malware

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

last updated 7 April 2017

A new batch of CIA documents published by WikiLeaks on Friday includes 27 manuals detailing a malware installer framework codenamed "Grasshopper."

This software allows the spy agency to get around computer security measures to secretly install "customized malware payloads" — basically, weaponized programs that operate without the computer owner's permission or knowledge — that are tailored to the target's computer.

Grasshopper can be used with a module dubbed "Stolen Goods," which in turn uses a third-party malware called Carberp, which is thought to be code of Russian origin. The Carberp code the CIA employs is reportedly substantially modified and its components "were carefully analyzed for hidden functionality, backdoors, [and] vulnerabilities" that could put CIA malware projects at risk of external interference.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.