Former FSB SORM Developer Fled to France with Surveillance Docs
Important Stories spoke with a programmer who worked on surveillance systems for the FSB and then left for France with an archive of information on SORM.
Consensus
- Ivan Kirsanov is a 24-year-old programmer who worked on the SORM system for the FSB.
- Kirsanov worked for a company within the 'Tsitadel' holding, the main developer of SORM.
- Kirsanov left Russia in 2025 and moved to France.
- He brought with him an archive of technical documentation on SORM.
- Journalists from 'Vazhnye Istoriya', including those from Meduza and Mediazona, obtained and analyzed the archive.
- The archive contains technical documents from 'MFI Soft' covering 2021–2024.
- The documents describe how internet traffic is routed from users to FSB officials.
- The SORM system can collect metadata from messaging apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, Zoom, Viber, WeChat, and Discord.
- Signal remains inaccessible to SORM due to strong encryption.
- ICQ, Mail.ru Agent, and Jabber are considered the most vulnerable platforms for surveillance.
- The FSB can track all visitors to a website if they are not using a VPN.
- Experts have confirmed the authenticity of the documents in the archive.
Points of divergence
- Kirsanov currently lives in France on a student residence permit, works as a shepherd on a farm, and is challenging the refusal of refugee status. — meduza
- Kirsanov began learning programming at age 11 through YouTube videos and was influenced by Alexei Navalny's content. — meduza
- Kirsanov was detained in January 2021 during a protest in support of Alexei Navalny. — meduza
- Kirsanov was warned by the prosecutor's office and faced threats of expulsion from college after participating in political activities. — meduza
- Kirsanov joined 'Sber' at age 19 and later moved to Moscow to avoid military conscription. — meduza
- Kirsanov's work involved modifying code written by FSB-affiliated developers ('FSBshniki'). — meduza
- Kirsanov's project was controlled by Sergey Korolev, son of the first deputy head of the FSB. — mediazona
- Kirsanov stated that the systems he worked on could be used both against real criminals and to suppress dissent. — mediazona
- Kirsanov left Russia because he believed 'something terrible' was happening and that war was underway. — mediazona
Coverage (3 sources)
- Important Stories spoke with one of the developers of the FSB system for network surveillance — and gained access to its documentation — Дождь (Telegram)
- «Important Stories» spoke with one of the developers of SORM — the system used by the FSB to monitor Russians. He left Russia and took an archive of internal documents — Meduza
- Important Stories spoke with a programmer who worked on surveillance systems for the FSB, and then left for France together with an archive of information about SORM — Медиазона
Key entities
More on Ivan Kirsanov
- Former SORM Developer Exposes Surveillance Capabilities
- Former SORM Developer Exposes Russian Surveillance System