US Justice Department, CrowdStrike Disrupt Sality Malware Network Used to Steal Crypto

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The US Department of Justice, working with cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, has disrupted a malware network used to steal cryptocurrency.

Cointelegraph reported on September 2 that the Justice Department had completed an international operation targeting the Sality botnet and related malware. The effort involved authorities in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, along with private-sector partners CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation.

CrowdStrike said the operators behind Sality used a clipjacking tool known as EggJagger to steal cryptocurrency over the past eight years. The tool works by secretly replacing a cryptocurrency wallet address copied to a victim’s clipboard with one controlled by the attackers. If a victim copies a Bitcoin or Ethereum address to make a payment, the funds are sent to a different address.

The stolen cryptocurrency was worth about 121 million rubles, or roughly $150,000. The assets had never been withdrawn and remained in the wallets. As of January 2025, their value had climbed to as much as $1.5 million.

Sality has been known since 2003 for installing malware on infected devices. About 15,000 infected computers formed a peer-to-peer botnet that checked system status every 40 minutes. The operation severed the Sality operators’ communications with infected machines, CrowdStrike said.