Filecoauth.exe process belongs to a malevolent application that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer pretty much unfunctional due to high CPU use.
What is Filecoauth.exe process?
Filecoauth.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have specified in the previous paragraph, Filecoauth.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file may be diverse, however, the consequences are almost always the same. Because coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they utilize all possible hardware power of your PC to conduct this operation. This virus does not care about the fact that you may want to use your PC for other tasks – it will continuously consume over 80% of your CPU power.
Filecoauth.exe – Really high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Filecoauth.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can cause bad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Crypto mining is a term that means the operation of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful machine is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms are usually constructed of dozens of GPUs to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Fraudsters who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Filecoauth.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, Filecoauth.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, because all processor power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your demands, 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 struggle with incredibly slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that works online.
Filecoauth.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Filecoauth.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Srtasks.exe, Prevhost.exe, Mobsync.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Filecoauth.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your personal computer. Filecoauth.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malevolent operations properly, it ruins the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a load of new notes – they are added by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be thrown back to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your system’s performance, running at peak level for a long period of time can cause damage to your machine and raise electricity costs. Hardware elements are designed to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Compact and well-protected CPU cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for example, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Filecoauth.exe can easily lead to GPU failure3. Graphic cards are also tend to have very fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Filecoauth.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 common malevolent programs through “serious” malware. Adware frequently serves as a carrier for Filecoauth.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics say that about 30% of all viruses spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Filecoauth.exe is right among them.
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
Another way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the suspicious web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a very big lure to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for every setup. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid buying the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus program as well as new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Filecoauth.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 programs, just like the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the computer without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.
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.
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