Mfebrowserhost.exe process belongs to a harmful application that can properly be identified as a coin miner trojan. That malware type utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly nonfunctional because of high CPU usage.
What is Mfebrowserhost.exe process?
Mfebrowserhost.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Mfebrowserhost.exe – Very high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Mfebrowserhost.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may cause sad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Mfebrowserhost.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, Mfebrowserhost.exe malware makes your PC overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, as all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, 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 suffer from 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.
Mfebrowserhost.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Mfebrowserhost.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Mcshield.exe, Servicehost.exe, Mfemms.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Mfebrowserhost.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your PC. Mfebrowserhost.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To perform all malevolent functions successfully, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new notes – they are added by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be gone back to the initial state in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your system’s performance, running at peak level for long times can cause damage to your machine and increase power expenses. Hardware components are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Little and well-protected CPU cooling system is not very easy to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if touched while working, for example, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Mfebrowserhost.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Mfebrowserhost.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 PC is by downloading it from the unreliable web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every setup. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid purchasing the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus software and new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Mfebrowserhost.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 PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, just like 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.
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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