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# Cyclops Blink disruption

April 2022, State sponsored
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?

Malware copied for evidentiary purposes and then removed from compromised C2 devices under court authorization; device owners still needed to independently patch underlying vulnerabilities.

[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

A court-authorized DOJ/FBI operation copied and removed GRU/Sandworm malware from compromised firewall devices functioning as C2 nodes, severing thousands of downstream bots from those nodes.

**Date:** April 2022

**Target:** Cyclops Blink (attributed to Russia's GRU-linked Sandworm), botnet

**Activity:** State sponsored

**Operational lead:** FBI

**Partners**

DOJ[[1]](#source-1)

- [United States Department of Justice](https://takedownindex.org/organizations/united-states-department-of-justice), prosecuting

**Jurisdiction:** Not established

**Outcome:** Malware copied for evidentiary purposes and then removed from compromised C2 devices under court authorization; device owners still needed to independently patch underlying vulnerabilities.

**Status:** Completed

**Legal mechanism:** Court-authorized remote remediation (Rule 41-type warrant).

**Group accounted for:** Not applicable

## 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

The cited record does not say how large the group was or whether everyone involved has been identified.

[See the organizations and roles behind this action](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/cyclops-blink-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.
[Court-authorized disruption of Cyclops Blink](https://takedownindex.org/sources/us-doj-court-authorized-disruption-of-cyclops-blink)

US DOJ, April 6, 2022, Source grade P1

Establishes the court-authorized removal of GRU-linked malware from compromised C2 devices.

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)

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- [RSOCKS proxy botnet disruption](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/rsocks-proxy-botnet-disruption)
- [Hive ransomware infiltration and seizure](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/hive-ransomware-infiltration-and-seizure)

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