Fawe.exe executable file comes from a harmful application that can correctly be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional because of high CPU use.
What is Fawe.exe process?
Fawe.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Fawe.exe – Really high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so Fawe.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often may lead to unhappy effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Fawe.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, Fawe.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from extremely slow efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person who works online.
Fawe.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Fawe.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Entertainment.exe, Hxoutlook.exe, Roclin.click |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Fawe.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your computer. Fawe.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malevolent functions effectively, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, performing at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your machine and increase electricity bills. Hardware components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Small and well-protected processor cooling system is not very easy 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 malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Fawe.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Fawe.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 thing on your PC is by downloading it from the suspicious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to get paid. Hence, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for every setup. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Fawe.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 apps, along with the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the computer 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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