Pingo.exe process comes from a malevolent program that can correctly be recognized as a coin miner virus. That malware form uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer roughly unfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is Pingo.exe process?
Pingo.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have actually pointed out earlier, Pingo.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file can be different, however, the consequences are generally the identical. Since coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware power of your PC to perform this process. This malware does not care about the fact that you may need to use your desktop for other activities – it will continuously use over 80% of your processor power.
Pingo.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Pingo.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often can lead to bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining is a term that means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a strong machine is needed. Exactly, the graphic card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of dozens of graphic cards to complete their task efficiently. Such systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Fraudsters who gain money 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 Pingo.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, Pingo.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, because all processor 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 browser is open, you will likely experience extremely slow efficiency. Pages can open for years, any kind of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that works online.
Pingo.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Pingo.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Ie4uinit.exe, Bdeunlock.exe, Bdehdcfg.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Pingo.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad thing coin miners perform to your computer. Pingo.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malevolent functions correctly, it ruins the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new notes – they are added by this coin miner to connect your system to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be thrown back to the initial state 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 cause damage to your machine and increase electricity costs. Hardware components are designed to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered processor cooling system is not very easy to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while running, for instance, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Pingo.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Video cards are also tend to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Pingo.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 malevolent programs through “severe” malware. Adware sometimes serves as a carrier for Pingo.exe malware infiltration: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics say that around 30% of all viruses spread through the malicious banners are coin miners – and Pingo.exe is just among them.4
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
One more way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the suspicious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to get paid. Hence, there is a very big lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for each installation. Before criticizing these guys for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid paying for the program in such a way? 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 Pingo.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 involves the use of special tool. Effective security tool must have high performance at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to create no problems with utilization also on weak computers. In addition, it is recommended to have proactive protection in your protection solution – to halt the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender does not have these features for different factors. That’s why I’d recommend you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that reason. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a great option that fits all of the specified features.5
Prior to the virus removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Pingo.exe miner takes a lot of CPU capacity, it is required to stop 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 software, just like the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
Remove Pingo.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 Pingo.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Pingo.exe
Description: The Pingo.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Pingo.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.
