Atbroker.exe process comes from a malicious application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional because of high CPU use.
What is Atbroker.exe process?
Atbroker.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Atbroker.exe – Really high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Atbroker.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can lead to bad consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Atbroker.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, Atbroker.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 wants, 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 suffer from exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person that works online.
Atbroker.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Atbroker.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | At.exe, Appvshnotify.exe, Arp.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Atbroker.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your personal computer. Atbroker.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malicious functions successfully, it ruins the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your system to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be reverted to the original in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your PC slow, running at peak power for a long period of time can cause damage to your device and increase power expenses. Hardware components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered processor cooling system is hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Atbroker.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also tend to have fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Atbroker.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 thing on your PC is by downloading it from the dubious site as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to make money. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for each installation. Prior to blaming these people for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Atbroker.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 programs, just like the majority of non-critical Windows components, are not launched 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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