The FBI says it was authorized to mass-remove “PlugX” malware from more than 4,000 compromised machines in the United States

The FBI said today that it removed Chinese malware from 4,258 US-based computers and networks by sending commands that forced the malware to use its "self-delete" function.

After obtaining the necessary court orders, the researchers, together with the Cyber Division of the Paris Prosecution Office, French Gendarmerie Cyber Unit C3N, the FBI, and the DoJ, ran the campaign and successfully removed the malware from infected computers.

The FBI and French authorities conducted an international operation to remotely delete Chinese malware used by Beijing-linked hackers to steal data from thousands of U.S., European, and Asian computer networks,

Law enforcement turns the PlugX malware’s own self-delete mechanism against it, nuking the China-linked trojan from thousands of US machines.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that the FBI has deleted Chinese PlugX malware from over 4,200 computers in networks across the United States.

According to the FBI, it worked on deleting the malware from over 4,000 Windows-based computers, further regarding that PlugX is capable of taking over a computer to steal the files and share them with the right people over in China.

The group, Mustang Panda, used malware called PlugX to access thousands of computers worldwide, according to the Justice Department and FBI. Newsweek reached out to the FBI via email for comment. The group managed to hack computers in at least 170 countries,

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have concluded an extensive international operation that successfully removed PlugX malware from more than 4,200 computers across the United States.