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
As I have pointed out in the introduction, Consulta.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the .exe file may be different, but the effects are almost always the same. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware capacity of your PC to perform this process. This malware does not pay attention to the fact that you probably want to make use of your PC for other tasks – it will always take over 80% of your processor power.
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
Crypto mining is a term that means the action 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 machine is required. Exactly, the video card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of dozens of GPUs to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Crooks who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ hardware instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
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
Coin miners are one of the most prevalent malicious programs through “major” viruses. Adware sometimes serves as a carrier for Consulta.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics say that approximately 30% of all malware spread through the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Consulta.exe is right among them.4
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
Eliminating such a virus needs the use of specific tool. Appropriate antivirus must have high performance at scanning and be lightweight – in order to create no problems with usage even on weak systems. On top of that, it is better to have on-run security in your security solution – to prevent the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender lacks these functions for different factors. That’s why I’d advise you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that objective. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a superb choice that fits each of the discussed characteristics.5
Prior to the virus removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Consulta.exe miner takes a lot of processor capacity, 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.
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.
Remove Consulta.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.
After activating your free trial, start Full scan. It may last up to 10 minutes. You may use the PC as usual.
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.
Now, you are good to go. Reboot your PC into a normal Windows mode and use just as there was nothing malicious.
Remove Consulta.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Consulta.exe
Description: The Consulta.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Consulta.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
User Review
( votes)References
- Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
- Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
- Read more about various malware type on Cybersecurity Glossary.
- Our review on GridinSoft Anti-Malware.
