Gamebar.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Gamebar.exe executable file belongs to a malicious program that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly unfunctional because of high CPU usage.

What is Gamebar.exe process?

Gamebar.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Gamebar.exe Windows Process

Gamebar.exe – Really high CPU and GPU use

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as essential as CPU for system work, so Gamebar.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can result in unhappy results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Microsoft Defender is stopped;
  • CPU and GPU is loaded at 80-90% exactly after the system start
  • Cooling fans are running at high speed and create a lot of noise
  • A single process in Task Manager consumes all CPU and GPU power
  • How dangerous is the Gamebar.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    First of all, Gamebar.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, because all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from incredibly sluggish performance. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who works online.

    Gamebar.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Gamebar.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Storeexperiencehost.exe, Iriunwebcam.exe, Lenovovantageservice.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Gamebar.exe removal.

    “Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant thing coin miners perform to your computer. Gamebar.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To conduct all malicious operations correctly, it ruins the protection 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 number of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your system to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments shall 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 level for long times may trigger damage to your machine as well as raise power bills. PC elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.

    Tiny and well-protected CPU cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while working, for instance, by the user much earlier before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Gamebar.exe can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Gamebar.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the suspicious site as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to get paid. Therefore, there is a very big temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for each setup. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid paying for the program in this manner? 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 computer.

    How to remove the Gamebar.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.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    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.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your system is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

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