Rat.exe process comes from a malicious application that can correctly be defined as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer almost unusable because of high CPU usage.
What is Rat.exe process?
Rat.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have actually pointed out in the previous paragraph, Rat.exe is a coin miner trojan virus. The names of the executive file can be diverse, however, the impacts are generally the identical. Considering that coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware power of your desktop to conduct this procedure. This virus doesn’t take note of the fact that you may want to make use of your PC for other tasks – it will continuously consume over 80% of your processor power.
Rat.exe – Very high CPU/GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Rat.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It often may cause bad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining is a term that means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic part of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful desktop is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of dozens of video cards to complete their task efficiently. Such computer systems are not usable for “general” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks 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 Rat.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First, Rat.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, as all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience exceptionally slow performance. Pages will open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who does a job online.
Rat.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Rat.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Vbc.exe, Rsdeteto.exe, Data64_3.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Rat.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners do to your personal computer. Rat.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To perform all malicious functions successfully, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your system to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be reverted to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides making your PC slow, performing at peak level for long times may cause damage to your device and increase electricity costs. PC elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.
Little and covered processor fan is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Rat.exe virus can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Video cards are also prone to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely an undesirable situation when the performance of your GPU plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Rat.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 common malicious programs among “serious” malware. Adware often serves as a carrier for Rat.exe malware infiltration: it demonstrates you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that about 30% of all viruses spread through the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Rat.exe is just among them.4
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
One more way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the untrustworthy website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to earn money. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every setup. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.
How to remove the Rat.exe miner from my PC?
The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software
Removing such a virus requires using special app. Appropriate anti-malware program should have high efficiency at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage also on weak PCs. In addition, it is better to have on-run protection in your security tool – to prevent the virus even before it launches. 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 goal. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is an ideal option that fits each of the specified qualities.5
Before the malware removal, it is important to reboot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Rat.exe miner takes a lot of processor 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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party applications, along with the majority of non-crucial system 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.
Remove Rat.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 Rat.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Rat.exe
Description: The Rat.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Rat.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.
