-agent.exe process belongs to a malevolent application that can accurately be defined as a coin miner trojan. That malware type utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly nonfunctional because of high CPU use.
What is -agent.exe process?
-agent.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
-agent.exe – Very high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as crucial as processor for system work, so -agent.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use it all. It often may cause unhappy results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the -agent.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First of all, -agent.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, since all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from incredibly sluggish performance. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who works online.
-agent.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | -agent.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Setpoint.exe, Cthkctrl.exe, Updreg.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic -agent.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a solitary bad thing coin miners perform to your personal computer. -agent.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious operations successfully, it wrecks the security mechanisms 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 load of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be gone back to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak power for a long period of time can trigger damage to your machine as well as raise power costs. PC elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered CPU fan is hard to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if touched while working, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by -agent.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure3. GPUs are also tend to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely a bad case when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get -agent.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
One more way you could get this thing on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable site as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. For this reason, there is a huge lure to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for every setup. Before criticizing these guys for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software and new parts for your PC.
How to remove the -agent.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 applications, just like the majority of non-critical system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you 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.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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