Federal authorities announced Tuesday that they have erased Chinese malware from thousands of computers across the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday disclosed that a court-authorized operation allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to delete PlugX malware from over 4,250 infected computers as part of a "multi-month law enforcement operation.

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. The People's Republic of China (PRC) government paid the Mustang Panda group to develop a version of PlugX malware used to infect,