Chrosha.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Chrosha.exe executable file comes from a harmful application that can accurately be identified as a coin miner trojan. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost unusable as a result of high CPU use.

What is Chrosha.exe process?

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

As I have actually pointed out before, Chrosha.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the .exe file can be different, however, the consequences are generally the identical. Because coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware capacity of your desktop to perform this operation. This virus doesn’t pay attention to the fact that you may need to use your system for other tasks – it will always use over 80% of your CPU power.

Chrosha.exe Windows Process

Chrosha.exe – Very high CPU as well as 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 cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Chrosha.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may result in unhappy results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

Cryptocurrency mining means the activity of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a high-end desktop is needed. Exactly, the video card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms usually consist of tens and hundreds of graphic cards to conduct their activity effectively. Such computer systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Fraudsters who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.

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 Chrosha.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, Chrosha.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, as all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, 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 struggle with incredibly sluggish performance. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who works online.

    Chrosha.exe Technical Summary.

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

    “Visible” damage is not a solitary bad activity coin miners do to your PC. Chrosha.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malicious operations effectively, it ruins the protection components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a load of new notes – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the initial state in the process of system recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

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

    Little and well-protected CPU fan is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if touched while spinning, for instance, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Chrosha.exe can easily lead to graphic card failure. GPUs are also prone to have increased wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Chrosha.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 the most widespread malicious programs among “severe” malware. Adware sometimes serves as a carrier for Chrosha.exe malware injection: it shows you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” may belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics show that about 30% of all viruses spread through the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Chrosha.exe is right one of them.

    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    One more way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a huge lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for every setup. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus program and new parts for your computer.

    How to remove the Chrosha.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 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 gives you the ability to clean the system without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.

    Spanish Turkish

    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.

    Leave a Comment