Federal authorities say they ran a court-approved operation to identify and remotely delete malware from China-backed hackers from thousands of computers, including in Pennsylvania.

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.

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

The FBI worked with French law enforcement to squash a variant of the PlugX malware that spreads through USB drives.

More than 4,000 U.S. computers and networks have had malware files deleted by the FBI, which said it did not collect other information during the remote operations.

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,

Malicious software is just one of the ways hackers can steal data or cause damage to your electronic devices, but two federal agencies undertook major steps to combat it.

The FBI just closed a backdoor into thousands of computers by telling the malware to delete itself. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, the intelligence agency was able to successfully get PlugX,