Cthelper.exe process belongs to a malevolent program that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer pretty much unusable due to high CPU usage.
What is Cthelper.exe process?
Cthelper.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Cthelper.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that instance, you will 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 Cthelper.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It often may result in sad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Cthelper.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First off, Cthelper.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, because all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your wants, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience extremely sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person who does a job online.
Cthelper.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Cthelper.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Ccleaner64.exe, Chrmstp.exe, Adobearm.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Cthelper.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single bad activity coin miners do to your system. Cthelper.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To carry out all malevolent functions effectively, it ruins the security components 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 computer to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments are about to be gone back to the original in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your PC’s performance, running at peak power for a long period of time may cause damage to your device as well as increase electricity costs. PC elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Tiny and covered processor fan is hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for instance, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Cthelper.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Video cards are also prone to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable case when the performance of your GPU decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Cthelper.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
An additional way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the suspicious 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 get paid. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for each setup. Before blaming these individuals for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK 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 bigger sum for antivirus program and new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Cthelper.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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-crucial system 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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