Fnhotkeyutility.exe executable file is related to a harmful program that can correctly be defined as a coin miner virus. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer pretty much unfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is Fnhotkeyutility.exe process?
Fnhotkeyutility.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Fnhotkeyutility.exe – Very high CPU as well as GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Fnhotkeyutility.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes may lead to sad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Fnhotkeyutility.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, Fnhotkeyutility.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your needs, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience incredibly slow performance. Pages can open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.
Fnhotkeyutility.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Fnhotkeyutility.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Eoppframe.exe, Appvclient.exe, Applytrustoffline.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Fnhotkeyutility.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your computer. Fnhotkeyutility.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malicious functions correctly, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your PC’s performance, running at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your device as well as raise power costs. Hardware components are designed to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Tiny and covered CPU cooling system is hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Fnhotkeyutility.exe miner can easily lead to GPU failure3. Graphic cards are also tend to have increased wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely a bad situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Fnhotkeyutility.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 untrustworthy web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. Therefore, there is a very big temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every installation. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus program and new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Fnhotkeyutility.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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party software, along with the majority of non-critical Windows components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the system 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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