Cpulimit.exe process belongs to a harmful application that can accurately be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost unfunctional because of high CPU usage.
What is Cpulimit.exe process?
Cpulimit.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Cpulimit.exe – Very high CPU and GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will probably struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as crucial as processor for system work, so Cpulimit.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes can result in sad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Cpulimit.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First, Cpulimit.exe virus makes your computer 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 focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from incredibly slow efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that does a job online.
Cpulimit.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Cpulimit.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | 1.exe, Eml.exe, V4_tool.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Cpulimit.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a solitary unpleasant thing coin miners perform to your system. Cpulimit.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To carry out all malevolent operations successfully, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be reverted to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak level for a long period of time may cause damage to your device and increase power expenses. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Tiny and covered CPU cooling system is quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for example, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Cpulimit.exe virus can easily lead to GPU failure3. Video cards are also tend to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Cpulimit.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 thing on your computer is by downloading it from the suspicious 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 get paid. For this reason, there is a huge lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for each setup. Before blaming these people 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 figure for antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Cpulimit.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 software, just like the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started 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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