Accountpictures.exe process comes from a malicious application that can accurately be recognized as a coin miner trojan. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost nonfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.
What is Accountpictures.exe process?
Accountpictures.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have mentioned previously, Accountpictures.exe is a coin miner trojan virus. The names of the executive file can be different, however, the consequences are usually the same. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they utilize all possible hardware capacity of your PC to perform this procedure. This malware does not take note of the fact that you probably need to use your machine for other tasks – it will always use over 80% of your processor power.
Accountpictures.exe – Extremely high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also make use of GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as crucial as processor for system work, so Accountpictures.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use it all. It often may lead to unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining term means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral part of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a high-end desktop is needed. Exactly, the video card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of dozens of video cards to complete their task efficiently. Such computer systems are not usable for “usual” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Accountpictures.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First off, Accountpictures.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, all it focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any kind of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that does a job online.
Accountpictures.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Accountpictures.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Pua.linux, Apphelper.exe, Brkrprcs64.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Accountpictures.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad activity coin miners perform to your computer. Accountpictures.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To perform all malevolent functions successfully, it wrecks the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be thrown back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak level for a long period of time can cause damage to your machine and raise electricity bills. Hardware elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered CPU fan is hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while spinning, for instance, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Accountpictures.exe miner can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have fast wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely an undesirable situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Accountpictures.exe coin miner virus?
Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
Coin miners are one of the most prevalent malevolent programs through “major” malware. Adware often acts as a carrier for Accountpictures.exe malware infiltration: it shows you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that around 30% of all malware spread through the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Accountpictures.exe is just with them.
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
An additional way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. Therefore, there is a very big temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for every installation. Prior to criticizing these individuals for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid paying for the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Accountpictures.exe miner from my PC?
The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software
Booting the PC into Safe Mode with Networking
Press the Start button, then choose Power, and click on Reboot while holding the Shift key on the keyboard.
Windows will reboot into recovery mode. In that mode, choose Troubleshoot→ Startup Settings→ Safe Mode with Networking. Press the corresponding button on your keyboard to choose that option.
When your computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, just like the majority of non-crucial operating system components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the computer without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
References
- Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
- Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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