Pyh.exe process is related to a malicious application that can accurately be defined as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost unfunctional because of high CPU usage.
What is Pyh.exe process?
Pyh.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Pyh.exe – Really high CPU/GPU use
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Pyh.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may result in sad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Pyh.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, Pyh.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, because all CPU power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your wants, 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 extremely sluggish performance. Pages will open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.
Pyh.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Pyh.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Osdmnuu.exe, Npe.exe, Wndows.driver |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Pyh.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single bad activity coin miners do to your PC. Pyh.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malicious operations correctly, it wrecks the security features 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 number of new entries – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be thrown back to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, running at peak level for long times can trigger damage to your device and increase electricity costs. Hardware elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered processor 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 unusually high load caused by Pyh.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also prone to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when the performance of your video card plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Pyh.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 PC is by downloading it from the untrustworthy web page as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to make money. Thus, there is a very big temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for every setup. Before criticizing these individuals for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright 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 sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Pyh.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, just like 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 processor 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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