International Operation Disrupts Sality P2P Botnet
US-led international operation with Europol, CrowdStrike, and Shadowserver sinkholed the 20-year-old Sality P2P botnet, once exceeding one million infected machines.
On August 31, 2026, authorities from the US, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, supported by Europol, CrowdStrike, and the Shadowserver Foundation, disrupted the Sality P2P botnet by sinkholing communications and seizing domains. Sality has operated for over 20 years, at its peak controlling more than one million infected machines used for credential theft, spam, proxy services, crypto-theft, and DDoS attacks, with over 11 million unique IP addresses linked to its infrastructure since 2017. The disruption exploited the botnet's super-peer reputation mechanism by removing legitimate peers via protocol-level manipulation and inserting sinkhole entries into emptied peer lists.
- August 31 operation coordinated by US, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania with Europol support
- Sality ran 20+ years, peaked at over one million infected machines
- More than 11 million unique IPs linked to infrastructure since 2017
- Disruption exploited super-peer reputation checks via protocol manipulation
- Shadowserver coordinated ISP and CSIRT victim notification and remediation
- Malware
- Sality
- Organizations
- EuropolUS Justice Department
- Countries
- United StatesBulgariaHungaryRomania
From the original article
2 min read at infosecurity-magazine.com
A P2P botnet thought to have been running for over two decades, has suffered significant disruption thanks to a US-led law enforcement operation. Carried out on August 31, the operation against the Sality botnet brought together authorities from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and the US, with the support of Europol as well as private-sector partners CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation.
By Phil Muncaster · infosecurity-magazine.com
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