Drive-watchdog.exe process comes from a harmful application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner trojan. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional as a result of high CPU use.
What is Drive-watchdog.exe process?
Drive-watchdog.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have mentioned in the introduction, Drive-watchdog.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the executive file can be different, but the effects are almost always the same. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware power of your personal computer to run this operation. This virus doesn’t care about the fact that you probably need to use your desktop for other activities – it will consistently use over 80% of your CPU power.
Drive-watchdog.exe – Very high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Drive-watchdog.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It often can cause unhappy results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Crypto mining is a term that means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic part of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a high-end desktop is required. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms usually consist of dozens of graphic cards to complete their task efficiently. Such computer systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Fraudsters who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ computers instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Drive-watchdog.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, Drive-watchdog.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, as all CPU power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience extremely sluggish performance. Pages will open up for years, any sort of logins will take about a minute – just a headache for a person who works online.
Drive-watchdog.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Drive-watchdog.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Hidfind.exe, Msisa.exe, 7z2107.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Drive-watchdog.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a solitary negative activity coin miners do to your personal computer. Drive-watchdog.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To execute all malicious operations properly, it ruins the security components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number 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 gone back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak level for long times can trigger damage to your device as well as raise electricity costs. PC elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered processor cooling system is not very easy to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while working, for example, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Drive-watchdog.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Video cards are also tend to have very fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable case when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Drive-watchdog.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 the most prevalent malicious programs among “major” malware. Adware sometimes acts as a carrier for Drive-watchdog.exe malware injection: it shows you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics show that around 30% of all viruses spread through the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Drive-watchdog.exe is just among them.4
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
Another way you could get this thing on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to make money. Thus, there is a very big temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every installation. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid paying for the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Drive-watchdog.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 demands the use of special software. Appropriate antivirus must have high performance at scanning and be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage also on weak systems. Furthermore, it is better to have proactive protection in your security solution – to stop the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender does not have these features for various 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 choice that fits all of the mentioned qualities.5
Prior to the virus removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Drive-watchdog.exe miner takes a lot of CPU 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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, just like the majority of non-crucial operating system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
Remove Drive-watchdog.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 Drive-watchdog.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Drive-watchdog.exe
Description: The Drive-watchdog.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Drive-watchdog.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.
