Pms.exe process belongs to a harmful program that can accurately be recognized as a coin miner trojan. That malware type uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost unfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.
What is Pms.exe process?
Pms.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Pms.exe – Really high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that instance, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as processor for system work, so Pms.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can lead to bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Pms.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Firstly, Pms.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, as all CPU power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your needs, 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 incredibly sluggish performance. Pages will open for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that works online.
Pms.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Pms.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 Pms.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your PC. Pms.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malicious functions successfully, it wrecks the security mechanisms 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 added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments shall be reverted to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, running at peak power for long times may cause damage to your machine and raise electricity bills. Hardware elements are designed to easily deal 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, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while working, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Pms.exe miner can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also prone to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely an unwanted situation when the performance of your graphic card decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Pms.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 thing on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious website as a part of a program. People who spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for each setup. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright 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 program as well as new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Pms.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 apps, just like the majority of non-critical 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.
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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