Popo.exe process is related to a harmful application that can correctly be recognized as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly unfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is Popo.exe process?
Popo.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Popo.exe – Extremely high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will likely struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Popo.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes can result in bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Popo.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Firstly, Popo.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, as all CPU power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person who works online.
Popo.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Popo.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Srbpolaris.exe, Sgrmbroker.exe, Program.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Popo.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad activity coin miners do to your system. Popo.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious functions correctly, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops 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 adjustments shall be reverted to the original in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your computer slow, running at peak power for long times may cause damage to your machine as well as increase electricity expenses. Hardware components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered CPU fan is hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Popo.exe virus can easily lead to GPU failure3. Video cards are also prone to have fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is surely an unwanted case when the performance of your GPU plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Popo.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 untrustworthy web page as a part of a program. Users who spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. For this reason, there is a huge lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and receive a coin for each installation. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Popo.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 Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC 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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