The 2022 operation against the Sandworm-linked Cyclops Blink botnet shows that federal agents can use a court-authorized warrant to disable identified command-and-control devices—but it does not establish that the FBI may access computers at will. The warrant covered a specific investigation and a defined set of actions. It did not authorize the FBI to enter every infected router, and the public record does not settle the full legal limits of future botnet disruptions.
What the FBI did in the Cyclops Blink operation
On April 6, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that an operation conducted the previous month had disrupted Cyclops Blink, a botnet of thousands of infected network hardware devices attributed by the U.S. government to Sandworm, which DOJ identifies with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU. The botnet used a two-tier structure: a smaller set of command-and-control devices directed a much larger group of infected devices.
The FBI’s intervention focused on the command-and-control layer. According to DOJ, agents copied and removed malware from identified internet-connected firewall devices that Sandworm used to control the botnet. The department said that cutting off those devices severed the downstream bots from Sandworm’s control; it also said agents did not access those thousands of downstream bot devices.
DOJ described the intervention as limited in what it changed and collected. Agents closed external management ports used by Sandworm, and the department said that change was non-persistent and could be reversed by restarting a device. DOJ also said the FBI used an automated script to collect device serial numbers and copied malware, but did not search for or collect other information from the relevant victim networks. The FBI did not communicate with the downstream bots. These details are DOJ’s account of the operation, not findings from a later court ruling on its execution.
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What the warrant authorized—and what Rule 41 does not establish
The public affidavit says the FBI obtained a warrant on March 18, 2022, in the Western District of Pennsylvania. It cites Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b)(6)(B), a venue provision for certain remote-access warrants. The affidavit described authority to retrieve data from malware, remove malware, and block remote access to the devices’ management panels, at least until owners reversed that change.
Rule 41(b)(6)(B) addresses where a judge may issue a warrant in specified investigations involving remote access; it is not, by itself, a blanket grant of substantive authority to hack any computer. In this case, the affidavit connected the request to an investigation involving protected computers damaged without authorization and located in five or more districts. The warrant supplied case-specific authorization for the described intervention. It should not be read as a general permission to enter unrelated devices or collect whatever information agents choose.
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The affidavit and warrant show what the government asked for and what the court authorized at that stage. DOJ’s announcement describes the government’s account of carrying out the operation. The available public record does not establish a merits ruling on a challenge to the intervention or a comprehensive court holding on the constitutional, property-rights, privacy, or due-process boundaries of future botnet disruptions. The Congressional Research Service’s 2025 overview places Cyclops Blink among examples of prosecutors using Rule 41(b)(6)(B) for botnet-disruption warrants; that does not turn this warrant into a judicial precedent resolving every legal question.
How the 2022 case differs from DOJ’s 2024 router operation
DOJ announced a separate court-authorized operation on February 15, 2024. It involved Ubiquiti EdgeOS small-office/home-office routers, not Cyclops Blink. DOJ said non-GRU criminals first infected the routers with Moobot, after which GRU Unit 26165 repurposed them. The agency described different actions and data collection in that case.
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| Operation | Devices and botnet role reached | Actions and data DOJ described | Reversibility and downstream devices |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 2022 Cyclops Blink operation, announced April 6, 2022 | Identified internet-connected firewall devices used as command-and-control infrastructure for a Sandworm-linked botnet. | DOJ said the FBI copied malware, collected device serial numbers through an automated script, and did not collect other victim-network information. | DOJ said management-port changes were reversible by restarting a device; agents did not communicate with the downstream bots. |
| February 2024 Ubiquiti/Moobot operation | Hundreds of Ubiquiti EdgeOS routers infected with Moobot and later repurposed by GRU Unit 26165. | DOJ said the operation copied and deleted files, changed firewall rules to block remote management, and temporarily collected non-content routing information. | DOJ described the firewall-rule changes as reversible. This was a separate incident, with different devices and an identified different GRU unit. |
The two cases illustrate why “the FBI disrupted a botnet” is not enough detail to assess the reach of an operation. The device layer agents accessed, the warrant’s scope, what information they collected, whether changes persisted, and whether a court later reviewed a challenge all matter. The announcements alone do not resolve the broader legal questions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What affected device owners should do
Disrupting command and control is not the same as cleaning every compromised device. DOJ said public and private remediation efforts had cleaned thousands of compromised devices by mid-March 2022, while a majority of the originally compromised devices remained infected at that point. Those are the department’s reported figures, not independently audited estimates of the botnet’s population or long-term remediation.
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DOJ directed owners of affected WatchGuard and ASUS devices to consult vendor detection and remediation guidance and install current firmware updates. The operation did not mean every router from either brand was infected, nor did the FBI’s intervention guarantee that a compromised device had been permanently cleaned. Owners should use the vendors’ guidance to determine whether a specific device is affected and what remediation applies, rather than infer infection from the brand alone.
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