Light.exe process belongs to a malevolent application that can properly be recognized as a coin miner virus. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost unusable because of high CPU usage.
What is Light.exe process?
Light.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Light.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Light.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes may cause unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Light.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, Light.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, since all processor power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your wants, all it focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely struggle with exceptionally slow efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who works online.
Light.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Light.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Data00.vji, Unrealcefsubprocess.exe, 2nd.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Light.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a solitary unpleasant thing coin miners do to your PC. Light.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your OS. To execute all malicious operations properly, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your computer’s performance, running at peak power for long times can trigger damage to your machine as well as raise power expenses. Hardware components are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Little and covered CPU cooling system is hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Light.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure3. GPUs are also tend to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Light.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
Another way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious website as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked versions of favored programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. Thus, there is a very big lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every installation. 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 much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus program and new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Light.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 apps, just like the majority of non-critical system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you 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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