Ausetup.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Written by Robert Bailey
Ausetup.exe process comes from a harmful program that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan. That malware type uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly nonfunctional due to high CPU usage.
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What is Ausetup.exe process?

Ausetup.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus

As I have specified earlier, Ausetup.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the .exe file can be diverse, but the consequences are almost always the identical. Considering that coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware capacity of your desktop to conduct this process. This virus doesn’t care about the fact that you may need to use your machine for other tasks – it will continuously use over 80% of your CPU power.

Ausetup.exe Windows Process

Ausetup.exe – Really high CPU/GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Ausetup.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes can lead to unhappy effects.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

Cryptocurrency mining is a term that means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a high-end PC is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms usually consist of tens and hundreds of video cards to conduct their activity effectively. Such computer systems are not usable for “usual” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ hardware instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Your device overheats (system unit/laptop body is very hot)
  • You are not able to open your apps or they are opening for ages
  • Unknown process is running in the background and consumes your PC resources
  • Windows Defender does not respond
  • How dangerous is the Ausetup.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    Firstly, Ausetup.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your needs, all it pays attention to is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience incredibly slow efficiency. Pages will open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.

    Ausetup.exe Technical Summary.

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

    “Visible” damage is not a solitary unpleasant thing coin miners do to your PC. Ausetup.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To carry out all malevolent operations effectively, it wrecks the security components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a load of new entries – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be thrown back 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 long times may trigger damage to your device as well as raise electricity costs. PC components are designed to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.

    Tiny and covered processor cooling system is hard to damage. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while running, for instance, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Ausetup.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely a bad case when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.

    How did I get Ausetup.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 common malevolent programs through “major” viruses. Adware frequently acts as a carrier for Ausetup.exe malware infiltration: it shows you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” may belong to any type – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics show that about 30% of all viruses spread through the malicious banners are coin miners – and Ausetup.exe is just with them.4

    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    Another way you could get this thing on your PC is by downloading it from the dubious site as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. Hence, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for each setup. Before blaming these guys for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus software and new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Ausetup.exe miner from my PC?

    The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software

    Getting rid of such a virus involves the use of special app. Effective antivirus must have high performance at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage also on weak systems. In addition, it is recommended to have on-run security in your security solution – to halt the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender does not have these functions for different reasons. That’s why I’d recommend you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that purpose. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a perfect option that fits all of the specified qualities.5

    Prior to the virus removal, it is important to reboot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Ausetup.exe miner consumes a lot of processor power, it is needed to stop it before launching the security program. Otherwise, your scan will last for years, even though the GridinSoft program is pretty lightweight.

    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 system 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 gives you the ability to clean the computer without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.

    Remove Ausetup.exe coin miner virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

    Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. You can use this anti-malware program for free during its 6-day trial period. In that term, all functions are available, and it takes no payments to remove malware from your system.

    GridinSoft Anti-Malware free trial

    After activating your free trial, start Full scan. It may last up to 10 minutes. You may use the PC as usual.

    Scanning in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

    When the scan is finished, press the Clean Now button to remove all detected elements from your system. This procedure takes less than a minute.

    GridinSoft Anti-Malware after the scan process

    Now, you are good to go. Reboot your PC into a normal Windows mode and use just as there was nothing malicious.

    Remove Ausetup.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner

    Name: Ausetup.exe

    Description: The Ausetup.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Ausetup.exe will create your CPU to go for very warm temperatures for prolonged periods of time, which could reduce the life of the CPU.

    Operating System: Windows

    Application Category: Trojan

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    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
    3. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
    4. Read more about various malware type on Cybersecurity Glossary.
    5. Our review on GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    I'm Robert Bailey, a passionate Security Engineer with a deep fascination for all things related to malware, reverse engineering, and white hat ethical hacking.

    As a white hat hacker, I firmly believe in the power of ethical hacking to bolster security measures. By identifying vulnerabilities and providing solutions, I contribute to the proactive defense of digital infrastructures.

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