.net.exe process belongs to a harmful program that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly nonfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is .net.exe process?
.net.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
.net.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as processor for system work, so .net.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may result in unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the .net.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, .net.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your wants, all it focuses on is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely slow efficiency. Pages will open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that works online.
.net.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | .net.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Dutcdecoderhost.exe, Dataexchangehost.exe, Igfxext.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic .net.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your personal computer. .net.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To complete all malevolent functions effectively, it ruins the security components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be reverted to the original in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak level for long times can cause damage to your device and increase electricity costs. PC components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and well-protected processor fan is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for example, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by .net.exe virus can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when used for crypto mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get .net.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 item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable site as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. Hence, there is a very big temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for each setup. Before criticizing these guys for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus program and new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the .net.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 applications, just like the majority of non-critical Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC 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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