Sality

Authorities Disrupt Sality P2P Botnet, Sever Malware Payload Distribution

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the takedown of the Sality peer-to-peer botnet on September 2, 2026. Law enforcement agencies from the United States, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, in collaboration with CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation, disrupted the botnet's update mechanism on August 31, 2026. The operation severed the channel used by operators to distribute new malware payloads and commands to infected systems. While existing malware on infected hosts remains unless actively cleaned, the takedown prevents further propagation of updated threats through the P2P network.