Hostupdater.exe process belongs to a harmful program that can properly be defined as a coin miner trojan. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost unfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.
What is Hostupdater.exe process?
Hostupdater.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have actually pointed out in the previous paragraph, Hostupdater.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the .exe file may be different, but the effects are almost always the same. Considering that coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware capacity of your personal computer to run this operation. This virus does not care about the fact that you may want to make use of your system for other activities – it will always take over 80% of your CPU power.
Hostupdater.exe – Very high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Hostupdater.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often may cause bad consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral element of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful PC is needed. Exactly, the graphic card is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of dozens of GPUs 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’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Hostupdater.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, Hostupdater.exe malware makes your computer 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 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 struggle with extremely slow performance. Pages can open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.
Hostupdater.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Hostupdater.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Pokumi.exe, Scardsvr.exe, Ghoods.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Hostupdater.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad activity coin miners perform to your system. Hostupdater.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To perform all malicious functions effectively, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments shall be thrown back to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak power for long times may trigger damage to your device as well as raise electricity bills. PC elements are designed to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Little and well-protected processor fan is quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if touched while spinning, for example, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Hostupdater.exe virus can easily lead to GPU failure3. Video cards are also prone to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely a bad situation when the performance of your graphic card decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Hostupdater.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 “major” malware. Adware frequently acts as a carrier for Hostupdater.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics say that approximately 30% of all malware spread through the malicious banners are coin miners – and Hostupdater.exe is right one of them.4
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 untrustworthy web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to get paid. Therefore, there is a huge lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for every setup. Prior to criticizing these individuals for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus program as well as new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Hostupdater.exe miner from my PC?
The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software
Getting rid of such a virus involves making use of specific tool. Proper antivirus must have high efficiency at scanning and be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage even on weak systems. On top of that, it is recommended to have proactive security in your security tool – to stop the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender lacks these elements for different reasons. That’s why I’d suggest you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that goal. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a perfect option that fits each of the mentioned characteristics.5
Before the malware removal, it is important to boot your Windows into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Hostupdater.exe miner consumes a lot of CPU capacity, it is required to stop 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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-critical system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.
Remove Hostupdater.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 Hostupdater.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Hostupdater.exe
Description: The Hostupdater.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Hostupdater.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.
