Consulta.exe process is related to a harmful application that can correctly be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer almost nonfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.
What is Consulta.exe process?
Consulta.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Consulta.exe – Extremely high CPU as well as GPU usage
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as processor for system work, so Consulta.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use it all. It often may lead to unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Consulta.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Firstly, Consulta.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, since all processor power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your wants, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with incredibly sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person who works online.
Consulta.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Consulta.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Diskmanagment.exe, Lsass4.exe, Wermgr.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Consulta.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a solitary bad thing coin miners perform to your system. Consulta.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malicious operations successfully, it wrecks the security mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be thrown back to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak power for long times may cause damage to your machine as well as raise power bills. PC elements are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered CPU fan is quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Consulta.exe can easily lead to GPU failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have very fast wearing when used for crypto mining. It is surely an undesirable case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Consulta.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
One more way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the dubious web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. Hence, there is a very big temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for each setup. Before blaming these individuals for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Consulta.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 PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, along with the majority of non-critical system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU 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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