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

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 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."