Bitfiat process originates from a malicious program that can accurately be categorized as a trojan coin miner. This type of malware exploits your hardware resources to mine cryptocurrencies, specifically, Monero or DarkCoin1, which significantly increases your CPU usage and renders your personal computer virtually unusable.
What is Bitfiat process?
Bitfiat is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Bitfiat is a type of malware that can infect your computer without your knowledge or consent. Once installed, it uses your computer’s resources to mine cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, Monero, or Ethereum. Bitfiat can cause your computer to slow down significantly, and you may notice that your computer’s fan is running at full speed, even when you’re not using any programs.
One of the most concerning aspects of Bitfiat is that it can evade detection by traditional antivirus software. This is because the malware can have different names for its executive files, making it difficult to detect and remove. Furthermore, Bitfiat can spread through infected email attachments, software downloads, or malicious websites, making it important to practice safe browsing and email habits.
Bitfiat – Really high CPU/GPU use
In addition to consuming CPU power, some coin miners also exploit GPU resources for their operations. This may cause your system to lag significantly, to the point where even the movement of your mouse cursor may become difficult to detect, as the GPU is often used up to 100%. While the GPU is not as vital as the CPU for system functions, Bitfiat coin miner viruses do not overlook its potential and fully exploit it, often leading to adverse consequences.
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Bitfiat miner?
Coin miners do not deal damage to your files. However, they do a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, Bitfiat virus makes your computer overloaded. It cannot run your applications now, as a virus consumes all CPU power. That malware does not care for your demands; it only pays attention to making money on you. Even if you are patient and you wait until the web browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years. Any logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for someone who works online.
Bitfiat Technical Summary.
| File Name | Bitfiat |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites, etc. |
| Similar behavior | Qtwebengineprocess.exe, Cs_installer.exe, Chek.exe |
“Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant thing coin miners perform to your system. Bitfiat coin miner also damages your operating system. To complete all malicious operations effectively, it wrecks the protection components 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 – this trojan miner brings them in to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments are about to be gone back to the original in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak power for an extended period may cause damage to your machine as well as increase electricity costs. PC elements are created to get along with high load easily, but they can do so only when they are in good shape.
Small and well-protected CPU fan is difficult to break. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Bitfiat miner, can easily lead to graphic card failure2. Video cards are also prone to wear very fast when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely a bad case when your GPU’s performance decreases by 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get the Bitfiat 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
Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the suspicious website as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances of making money. Hence, there is a huge lure to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for every installation. Before criticizing these guys for hacking and spreading malware, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid buying the program this way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater sum for an antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Bitfiat 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, choose Power and click 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 most non-crucial Windows components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the computer without dealing with the high processor 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 crypto mining.
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