Activator.exe process is related to a malevolent application that can properly be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly nonfunctional as a result of high CPU use.
What is Activator.exe process?
Activator.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Activator.exe – Really high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also make use of GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as processor for system work, so Activator.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It often may result in sad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Activator.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, Activator.exe malware makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all processor power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your demands, all it pays attention to 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 performance. Pages can open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a headache for a person who does a job online.
Activator.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Activator.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | 1.exe, Eml.exe, V4_tool.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Activator.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single bad activity coin miners do to your system. Activator.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malevolent functions effectively, it ruins the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new notes – they are added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the initial state in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your PC slow, running at peak level for a long period of time can cause damage to your device as well as increase electricity bills. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Little and well-protected CPU cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for instance, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Activator.exe miner can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely a bad case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Activator.exe coin miner virus?
Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
An additional way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable web page as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. Hence, there is a huge lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for every installation. Before blaming these people for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus software and new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Activator.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 PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-crucial operating system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
References
- Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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