Pandhcpdns.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Pandhcpdns.exe process belongs to a malicious application that can accurately be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware form uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin¹. It makes your personal computer pretty much unusable as a result of high CPU usage.

What is Pandhcpdns.exe process?

Pandhcpdns.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus

Pandhcpdns.exe – Really high CPU/GPU use

Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also make use of GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so Pandhcpdns.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may result in unhappy consequences.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

Microsoft Defender is stopped;

CPU and GPU is loaded at 80-90% exactly after the system start

Cooling fans are running at high speed and create a lot of noise

A single process in Task Manager consumes all CPU and GPU power

How dangerous is the Pandhcpdns.exe miner?

Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

First, Pandhcpdns.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, as all processor power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your needs, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.

Pandhcpdns.exe Technical Summary.

File Name	Pandhcpdns.exe
Type	Trojan Coin Miner
Detection Name	Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
Distribution Method	Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
Similar behavior	Alcmtr.exe, Wpsupdate.exe, Wpsupdatesvr.exe
Removal	Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Pandhcpdns.exe removal.

“Visible” damage is not a solitary unpleasant thing coin miners perform to your computer. Pandhcpdns.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To perform all malicious operations successfully, it wrecks the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are added by this coin 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 computer recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides slowing down your PC, performing at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your machine as well as increase power costs. PC elements are designed to easily get along 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 quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Pandhcpdns.exe can easily lead to graphic card failure³. Graphic cards are also tend to have fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely an undesirable situation when the performance of your graphic card decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

How did I get Pandhcpdns.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

One more way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious web page as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. Therefore, there is a huge lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for each installation. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your PC.

How to remove the Pandhcpdns.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 software, along with the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.