CrowdStrike and the FBI are dismantling Sality after 23 years

U.S. law enforcement and CrowdStrike dismantled the Sality botnet, which had infected computers since 2003, by reverse-engineering its peer-to-peer architecture, seeding false data to force infected machines to disconnect, and seizing the domains used for control. The operation, described as CrowdStrike’s most complex botnet takeover, removed part of the infrastructure but did not result in arrests, and the long-standing infections highlight ongoing risks from unpatched legacy systems.