Remove Cr_hand.exe Miner Virus

Cr_hand.exe process belongs to a malevolent program that can correctly be identified as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type uses your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer almost unusable because of high CPU utilization.

What is Cr_hand.exe process?

Cr_hand.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Cr_hand.exe Windows Process

Cr_hand.exe – Very high CPU and GPU use

Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners also make use of GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Cr_hand.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may cause unhappy results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Extremely bad performance
  • CPU/GPU cooler fan creates a lot of noise
  • High temperature of the device (for laptops)
  • 80-90% consumption of CPU/GPU resources by an unknown process
  • Microsoft Defender is not working
  • How dangerous is the Cr_hand.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    First, Cr_hand.exe virus 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 wants, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience incredibly sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a headache for a person that does a job online.

    Cr_hand.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Cr_hand.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Settingsapp.exe, Canicscatibu.exe, Googlevssagent.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Cr_hand.exe removal.

    “Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your computer. Cr_hand.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To carry out all malevolent operations properly, it wrecks the security mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your system to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of system recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides decreasing your system’s performance, performing at peak power for a long period of time can cause damage to your machine and increase power costs. Hardware elements are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.

    Little and well-protected processor fan is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Cr_hand.exe malware can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have fast wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.

    How did I get Cr_hand.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable site as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to make money. Therefore, there is a huge lure to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for every installation. Before blaming these guys for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK 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 figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Cr_hand.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.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    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.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your system is in Safe Mode, all third-party applications, just like the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the computer without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

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