Liveupdateagent.exe process belongs to a malevolent application that can properly be defined as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional as a result of high CPU use.
What is Liveupdateagent.exe process?
Liveupdateagent.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Liveupdateagent.exe – Very high CPU as well as GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their tasks. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Liveupdateagent.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use it all. It often may lead to unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Liveupdateagent.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First, Liveupdateagent.exe malware makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your needs, 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 experience incredibly sluggish efficiency. Pages can open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.
Liveupdateagent.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Liveupdateagent.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Igfxpers.exe, Musnotification.exe, Ealauncher.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Liveupdateagent.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary unpleasant thing coin miners perform to your personal computer. Liveupdateagent.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malicious functions correctly, it ruins the security mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be reverted to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your computer’s performance, running at peak level for a long period of time can trigger damage to your device as well as raise power bills. PC components are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and well-protected CPU cooling system is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while working, for example, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Liveupdateagent.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also prone to have very fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation 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 Liveupdateagent.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 unreliable web page as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to make money. For this reason, there is a very big lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for every installation. Before blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Liveupdateagent.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-critical Windows 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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