Cleanwork.exe process comes from a harmful application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly unusable because of high CPU utilization.
What is Cleanwork.exe process?
Cleanwork.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Cleanwork.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Cleanwork.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It often may result in sad consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Cleanwork.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, Cleanwork.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, as all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from extremely slow efficiency. 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.
Cleanwork.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Cleanwork.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Wlanutxdre.exe, Graphicsaccelerator.exe, Secservice.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Cleanwork.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your PC. Cleanwork.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious operations effectively, it wrecks the protection mechanisms 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 lot of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments shall be reverted to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak level for long times can cause damage to your device and increase electricity costs. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Small and well-protected processor cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for instance, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Cleanwork.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also tend to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Cleanwork.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
Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. Thus, there is a very big temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for each installation. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Cleanwork.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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party software, just like the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the system without dealing with 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 cryptomining.
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