Ipconfig.exe process comes from a harmful program that can correctly be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer almost nonfunctional due to high CPU usage.
Originally, the ipconfig.exe process belongs to a Windows application – IP Configuration Utility. It is an embedded system tool that allows you to manage the IP configurations. However, as it often happens with legit process names, this one is sometimes used by coin miner trojans.
What is Ipconfig.exe process?
Ipconfig.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Ipconfig.exe – Extremely high CPU as well as GPU usage
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Ipconfig.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use it all. It often can cause unhappy results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Ipconfig.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Firstly, Ipconfig.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, as all processor power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your wants, all it pays attention to is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience extremely slow efficiency. Pages will open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that works online.
Ipconfig.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Ipconfig.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Robotdemo.exe, Ruternbroker.exe, Splwow64.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Ipconfig.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners do to your computer. Ipconfig.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious functions successfully, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid detection. 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 mining 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 making your PC slow, performing at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your device as well as raise power expenses. Hardware elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Tiny and well-protected processor fan is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if touched while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Ipconfig.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failur3. Video cards are also tend to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted case when the performance of your GPU plunges 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Ipconfig.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
An additional way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to make money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for every installation. Before criticizing these guys for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Ipconfig.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 apps, along with the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you 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.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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