Openwith.exe process belongs to a malicious application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware type uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly unfunctional as a result of high CPU utilization.
What is Openwith.exe process?
Openwith.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have specified in the introduction, Openwith.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the .exe file can be different, however, the consequences are usually the identical. Considering that coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware capacity of your personal computer to conduct this operation. This malware doesn’t care about the fact that you probably need to use your system for other activities – it will always consume over 80% of your CPU power.
Openwith.exe – Very high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their tasks. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as processor for system work, so Openwith.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may result in bad consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining term means the operation of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a high-end machine is required. Exactly, the graphic card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms are usually constructed of tens and hundreds of graphic cards to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Openwith.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, Openwith.exe virus makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is used 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 browser is open, you will likely experience extremely slow performance. Pages will open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that works online.
Openwith.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Openwith.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 Openwith.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a single negative activity coin miners do to your computer. Openwith.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To carry out all malevolent functions properly, it wrecks the protection components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent detection. 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 shall be thrown back to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your PC slow, running at peak power for long times may cause damage to your device as well as raise electricity bills. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered CPU cooling system is not very easy to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for example, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Openwith.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure3. GPUs are also tend to have increased wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when the performance of your graphic card plunges 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Openwith.exe coin miner virus?
Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
Coin miners are one of the most widespread malicious programs through “severe” malware. Adware sometimes functions as a carrier for Openwith.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics say that around 30% of all malware spread with the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Openwith.exe is just one of them.4
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
One more way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. People who spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for each setup. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus software and new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Openwith.exe miner from my PC?
The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software
Getting rid of such a virus needs making use of specific software. Effective security tool must have high capability at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage even on weak PCs. In addition, it is recommended to have proactive security in your protection solution – to halt the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender lacks these features for different reasons. That’s why I’d recommend you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that objective. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a superb choice that fits each of the mentioned features.5
Prior to the virus removal, it is important to reboot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Openwith.exe miner takes a lot of processor capacity, it is needed to halt it before launching the security program. Otherwise, your scan will last for years, even though the GridinSoft program is pretty lightweight.
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 Windows components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the system without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
Remove Openwith.exe coin miner virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware
Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. You can use this anti-malware program for free during its 6-day trial period. In that term, all functions are available, and it takes no payments to remove malware from your system.
After activating your free trial, start Full scan. It may last up to 10 minutes. You may use the PC as usual.
When the scan is finished, press the Clean Now button to remove all detected elements from your system. This procedure takes less than a minute.
Now, you are good to go. Reboot your PC into a normal Windows mode and use just as there was nothing malicious.
Remove Openwith.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Openwith.exe
Description: The Openwith.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Openwith.exe will create your CPU to go for very warm temperatures for prolonged periods of time, which could reduce the life of the CPU.
Operating System: Windows
Application Category: Trojan
User Review
( votes)References
- Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
- Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
- Read more about various malware type on Cybersecurity Glossary.
- Our review on GridinSoft Anti-Malware.
