Among.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Among.exe process comes from a harmful program that can accurately be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer almost unfunctional because of high CPU use.

What is Among.exe process?

Among.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Among.exe Windows Process

Among.exe – Really high CPU as well as GPU use

Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will probably struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Among.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes can lead to sad consequences.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Extremely bad performance
  • CPU/GPU cooler fan creates a lot of noise
  • High temperature of the device (for laptops)
  • 80-90% consumption of CPU/GPU resources by an unknown process
  • Microsoft Defender is not working
  • How dangerous is the Among.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, Among.exe malware makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, as all processor power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from incredibly sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that does a job online.

    Among.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Among.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Captures.exe, Flbmusic.exe, Itibiti.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Among.exe removal.

    “Visible” harm is not a solitary bad activity coin miners do to your personal computer. Among.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malevolent functions properly, it wrecks the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be reverted to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides making your PC slow, performing at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your machine as well as raise power costs. Hardware components are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.

    Small and well-protected CPU cooling system is hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while working, for example, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Among.exe virus can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Video cards are also tend to have fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely an undesirable situation when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Among.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    An additional way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the suspicious website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to make money. Therefore, there is a huge lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every installation. Prior to blaming these people for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software and new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Among.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.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    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.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, along with the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

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