Pickerhost.exe executable file is related to a harmful application that can accurately be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer pretty much unfunctional because of high CPU use.
What is Pickerhost.exe process?
Pickerhost.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have actually specified in the previous paragraph, Pickerhost.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file may be diverse, but the effects are usually the same. Because coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they utilize all available hardware power of your personal computer to perform this procedure. This malware does not care about the fact that you may want to use your desktop for other activities – it will continuously use over 80% of your CPU power.
Pickerhost.exe – Very high CPU/GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as crucial as CPU for system work, so Pickerhost.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can cause unhappy results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Crypto mining is a term that means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful desktop is needed. Exactly, the video card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms usually consist of dozens of GPUs to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ computers instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Pickerhost.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, Pickerhost.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, because all CPU power is used by a virus. 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 struggle with incredibly slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any sort of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.
Pickerhost.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Pickerhost.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Audiodg.exe, Igfx.exe, Reghost.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Pickerhost.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary bad activity coin miners do to your system. Pickerhost.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To perform all malevolent functions successfully, it ruins the protection components 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 entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be gone back to the original in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your PC slow, running at peak power for a long period of time may trigger damage to your device as well as increase power bills. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered CPU fan is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for example, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Pickerhost.exe malware can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when the performance of your video card plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Pickerhost.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 prevalent malicious programs among “serious” malware. Adware sometimes functions as a carrier for Pickerhost.exe malware infiltration: it shows you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” may belong to any type – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that approximately 30% of all viruses spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Pickerhost.exe is right with them.4
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 suspicious website as a part of a program. People who spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to get paid. Hence, there is a huge temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for each setup. Before blaming these people for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus software and new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Pickerhost.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 demands using special software. Effective antivirus should have high capability at scanning and be lightweight – in order to create no problems with usage also on weak computers. In addition, it is recommended to have on-run security in your security solution – to stop the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender does not have these functions for different factors. That’s why I’d advise you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that purpose. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a superb choice that fits all of the mentioned characteristics.5
Prior to the virus removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Pickerhost.exe miner consumes a lot of CPU power, it is required 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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party software, just like the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the computer without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
Remove Pickerhost.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 Pickerhost.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Pickerhost.exe
Description: The Pickerhost.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Pickerhost.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.
Normally the Pickerhost.exe is signed by Microsoft and comes from Microsoft! It scans the PC for malware.
It may occur sometimes in messages about found malware. But then it has only found some malware, itself is no malware!
In your case it has found a coin miner on your PC!
Or there may occur also a coin miner with the same name, but then not with an Microsoft signature.