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Operation Ghost Click

November 2011, Malware and botnets
Led by Federal Bureau of Investigation

Extended pass entry, last reviewed August 21, 2026

What was taken down?

FBI seized rogue DNS servers and, with court authorization, substituted clean DNS servers to keep previously infected machines online during remediation.

See what happened

What happened to the people?

Officials reported 6 charged and 1 apprehended.
Group accounted for: Partial

See people and accountability

Did it stay down?

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

See what happened afterward

FBI-led operation dismantled a rogue-DNS botnet that had redirected infected computers to fraudulent advertising infrastructure; six Estonian nationals were charged.

Date
November 2011
Target
DNSChanger, botnet
Activity
Malware and botnets
Operational lead
FBI
Partners
USAO-SDNY[1]
Jurisdiction
Not established
Outcome
FBI seized rogue DNS servers and, with court authorization, substituted clean DNS servers to keep previously infected machines online during remediation.
Status
Completed
Legal mechanism
Criminal complaint (SDNY); court-authorized substitute DNS infrastructure
Group accounted for
Partial

Infrastructure

Servers seized, with no count in the record.

Identifier Recorded as Status Notes
Not published Server Seized, United States Rogue DNS servers seized; clean substitute DNS infrastructure stood up under court order.[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.

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: Partial

Six defendants charged; only one (based in the US at the time) was reported apprehended promptly, with others pursued through Estonian authorities.

See the organizations and roles behind this action

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

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

Official sources

  1. [1]
    Operation Ghost Click / DNSChanger case announcement

    FBI / USAO SDNY, November 8, 2011, Source grade S2

    Establishes the DNSChanger seizure, substitute-DNS remediation, and the six-defendant indictment.

    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 (reports covering ~75-78 worldwide incidents). Not independently re-verified source-by-source in the same manner as the original 38-incident core; source_quality is capped at S2/P2 pending a dedicated verification pass, per the project's own recommended-next-steps methodology.