Nvidia.exe process is related to a malicious application that can properly be defined as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly unfunctional as a result of high CPU use.
What is Nvidia.exe process?
Nvidia.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Nvidia.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as crucial as CPU for system work, so Nvidia.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes can lead to sad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Nvidia.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, Nvidia.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that works online.
Nvidia.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Nvidia.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Lineinst.exe, Minerhash.exe, Zecminer64.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Nvidia.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad thing coin miners do to your system. Nvidia.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To conduct all malevolent operations effectively, it wrecks the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak level for long times can cause damage to your machine and increase power costs. PC elements are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered CPU fan is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for instance, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Nvidia.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted case when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Nvidia.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 PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every installation. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software and new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Nvidia.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, along with the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the computer 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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