Coin-miner.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Written by Robert Bailey
Coin-miner.exe process comes from a harmful application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly unusable as a result of high CPU use.
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What is Coin-miner.exe process?

Coin-miner.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus

As I have pointed out previously, Coin-miner.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the executive file can be diverse, however, the consequences are almost always the identical. Since coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware power of your personal computer to perform this procedure. This virus does not care about the fact that you may want to use your computer for other tasks – it will always consume over 80% of your processor power.

Coin-miner.exe Windows Process

Coin-miner.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that instance, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as essential as CPU for system work, so Coin-miner.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may lead to unhappy results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

Crypto mining means the activity of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic part of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful machine is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms usually consist of dozens of graphic cards to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “usual” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Fraudsters who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Microsoft Defender is stopped;
  • CPU and GPU is loaded at 80-90% exactly after the system start
  • Cooling fans are running at high speed and create a lot of noise
  • A single process in Task Manager consumes all CPU and GPU power
  • How dangerous is the Coin-miner.exe miner?

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

    Initially, Coin-miner.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, because all CPU power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your needs, 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 performance. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who works online.

    Coin-miner.exe Technical Summary.

    File NameCoin-miner.exe
    TypeTrojan Coin Miner
    Detection NameTrojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution MethodSoftware bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behaviorCsrsc.exe, Etcv2.exe, Tha.exe
    RemovalDownload and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Coin-miner.exe removal.

    “Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners do to your PC. Coin-miner.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malicious operations successfully, it ruins 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 lot of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be reverted to the initial state in the process of system recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides making your computer slow, running at peak level for long times may cause damage to your device as well as increase electricity expenses. PC components are designed to easily get along 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 hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if touched while running, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Coin-miner.exe malware 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 undesirable case when the performance of your graphic card decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Coin-miner.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 prevalent malevolent programs among “serious” malware. Adware often functions as a carrier for Coin-miner.exe malware injection: it shows you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that about 30% of all malware spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Coin-miner.exe is right one of them.4

    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    An additional way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. Hence, there is a huge lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for each setup. Prior to blaming these people for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay 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 program and new parts for your PC.

    How to remove the Coin-miner.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 needs making use of special tool. Proper antivirus should have high performance at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to create no problems with utilization also on weak computers. In addition, it is better to have proactive security in your protection tool – to stop the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender does not have these elements for different reasons. That’s why I’d advise you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that goal. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is an ideal option that fits all of the specified features.5

    Before the virus removal, it is important to reboot your system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Coin-miner.exe miner consumes a lot of processor power, it is needed to halt 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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, along with the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

    Remove Coin-miner.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 Coin-miner.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner

    Name: Coin-miner.exe

    Description: The Coin-miner.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Coin-miner.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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