Li4.exe process belongs to a malevolent program that can correctly be identified as a coin miner trojan. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer pretty much unusable because of high CPU use.
What is Li4.exe process?
Li4.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Li4.exe – Very high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as crucial as processor for system work, so Li4.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use it all. It often can cause bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Li4.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First, Li4.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, as all processor power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your demands, all it focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from extremely sluggish performance. Pages will open for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who does a job online.
Li4.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Li4.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Default.exe, St.exe, Xxx.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Li4.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single bad activity coin miners do to your computer. Li4.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To carry out all malicious operations successfully, it ruins the security 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 load of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments shall be thrown back to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, performing at peak power for a long period of time can trigger damage to your machine as well as raise electricity expenses. Hardware elements are designed to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Little and covered processor cooling system is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for example, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Li4.exe can easily lead to GPU failure3. GPUs are also tend to have fast wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Li4.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 item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for each installation. Before blaming these guys for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay 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 figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Li4.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 software, along with the majority of non-critical Windows components, are not launched 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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