Global sinkhole operation ends Sality botnet’s 23-year run
Law enforcement, CrowdStrike, and Shadowserver sinkholed the 23-year-old Sality P2P botnet, cutting 15,000+ infected machines from its operator.
Sality, active since 2003 as a file-infecting virus with two P2P networks (versions 3 and 4), distributed credential thieves, spam, proxies, and DDoS payloads, and most recently delivered the EggJagger clipboard hijacker that swapped cryptocurrency wallet addresses for at least $150,000 in operator profit. A coordinated sinkhole operation replaced the botnet's super-peer list with defender-controlled sinkholes, and investigators in the US, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania seized payload domains. The Shadowserver Foundation is coordinating ISP and CERT notifications to infected device owners.
Cops, CrowdStrike disrupt Sality botnet by poisoning the network and diverting into sinkholes
Law enforcement and CrowdStrike disrupted the 23-year-old Sality P2P botnet, isolating 15,000+ infected machines and seizing linked domains.
International law enforcement, working with CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation, executed a peer-to-peer sinkhole operation against Sality, a botnet active since 2003 that delivered malware to more than 15,000 machines worldwide. Sality's primary payload for eight years was EggJagger, a clipboard hijacker that swaps copied bitcoin and ethereum wallet addresses with attacker-controlled ones, yielding at least $150,000 in stolen cryptocurrency. The US Justice Department, FBI, and DoD Office of Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service seized Sality-linked domains, with parallel action in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. The Shadowserver Foundation is coordinating with ISPs and CSIRTs to identify infections and notify victims.