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# Citadel botnet disruption

June 2013, Malware and botnets
Led by [Federal Bureau of Investigation](https://takedownindex.org/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation)

Extended pass entry, last reviewed August 21, 2026

What was taken down?

Coordinated technical action against Citadel command infrastructure; FBI worked alongside a Microsoft-led civil process targeting a large number of individual botnet instances.

[See what happened](#what-happened)

What happened to the people?

No individual outcomes are recorded against this entry.
Group accounted for: Not applicable

[See people and accountability](#people)

Did it stay down?

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

[See what happened afterward](#afterward)

## What happened

FBI Cyber Division coordinated with Microsoft's separate civil legal action to disrupt more than a thousand Citadel botnets used for banking fraud.

**Date:** June 2013

**Target:** Citadel, botnet

**Activity:** Malware and botnets

**Operational lead:** FBI

**Partners**

Microsoft DCU[[1]](#source-1)

- [Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit](https://takedownindex.org/organizations/microsoft-digital-crimes-unit), technical partner

**Jurisdiction:** Not established

**Outcome:** Coordinated technical action against Citadel command infrastructure; FBI worked alongside a Microsoft-led civil process targeting a large number of individual botnet instances.

**Status:** Completed

**Legal mechanism:** FBI criminal process combined with a parallel Microsoft civil action (E.D.N.Y./W.D.N.C. civil orders for the Microsoft side)

**Group accounted for:** Not applicable

### Infrastructure

Domains seized, with no count in the record.

| Identifier | Recorded as | Status | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Not published | Domain | Seized, United States | Domains/servers associated with over a thousand individual Citadel botnet instances.[[1]](#source-1) |

Domains and onion addresses are shown defanged. Where the record gives a count but no identifier, the count is shown in place of one. This list carries only what appears in the cited sources.

## People and accountability

No individual is named against this entry in the cited record. That is a gap in what has been published rather than a finding that nobody was involved.

Group accounted for: Not applicable

Framed publicly as an infrastructure-disruption operation rather than a personnel-capture operation.

[See the organizations and roles behind this action](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/citadel-botnet-disruption/organizations)

## What happened afterward

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

## Sources

Numbered markers throughout this entry link to the source that supports the claim beside them.

### Official sources

1.
[Citadel botnet disruption announcement](https://takedownindex.org/sources/fbi-cyber-division-citadel-botnet-disruption-announcement)

FBI Cyber Division, June 5, 2013, Source grade S2

Establishes FBI coordination with Microsoft's civil action against Citadel infrastructure.

No address recorded for this source. Publisher, title, and date are given so it can be retrieved from the publisher.

Coverage note. Added from deep-research aggregation pass. Not independently re-verified source-by-source to the same standard as the original 38-incident core; source\_quality capped at S2/P2 pending a dedicated verification pass.

Research context

## How this entry was checked

This entry came from a broader aggregation pass and has not been independently verified source by source. Its sources are graded no higher than P2 or S2, and most carry no address yet. Treat the figures as a research lead rather than a settled record.

Source review: Extended pass, not yet verified

Sources cited: 1

Research cutoff: August 20, 2026

Last reviewed August 21, 2026

See also

[About the Internet Takedown Index](https://takedownindex.org/about)

Related entries

- [Silk Road seizure](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/silk-road-seizure)
- [ZeroAccess botnet disruption](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/zeroaccess-botnet-disruption)
- [Operation Tovar](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-tovar)

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