---
title: "Botnet Shutdown: Attempted to Infect 1 Million Machines a Month"
description: It's a prolific malware family that powered an extensive botnet. Now FBI & EU officials says they've shut it down.
---

[SecureWorld News ](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news)

# [Botnet Shutdown: Attempted to Infect 1 Million Machines a Month](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/botnet-shutdown-andromeda)

 Written by [SecureWorld News Team](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/author/secureworld-news-team) | Mon | Dec 4, 2017 | 4:15 PM Z

A major international effort that involved the FBI and several European cybersecurity agencies has dismantled a botnet that spread one of the longest running malware familes out there.

The malware is called Andromeda. Maybe you're familiar with it already.

Says a report from Europol: "This widely distributed malware created a network of infected computers called the Andromeda botnet. According to Microsoft, Andromeda’s main goal was to distribute other malware families.

Andromeda was associated with 80 malware families and, in the last six months, it was detected on or blocked an average of over 1 million machines every month."

This international effort is apparently linked to insights and information investigators gained when they [took down the Avalanche network](https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/%E2%80%98avalanche%E2%80%99-network-dismantled-in-international-cyber-operation) in 2016.

[View full post](https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/botnet-shutdown-andromeda)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "SecureWorld News Team"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2017-12-04T16:37:48.180Z",
  "datePublished" : "2017-12-04T16:15:48Z",
  "headline" : "Botnet Shutdown: Attempted to Infect 1 Million Machines a Month",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 414,
    "url" : "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2221756/Blog_images/Botnet%20-%20Labeled%20for%20Reuse_2.jpg",
    "width" : 640
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.secureworld.io/industry-news/botnet-shutdown-andromeda",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60.0,
      "url" : "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2221756/Logos/SWE/SWE_logo_full-long_forWHITEbackgrounds.jpg",
      "width" : 304.46954
    },
    "name" : "SecureWorld News"
  }
}
```