Starter.exe process comes from a harmful application that can properly be identified as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly unusable due to high CPU usage.
What is Starter.exe process?
Starter.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Starter.exe – Really high CPU and GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Starter.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may result in unhappy effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Starter.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, Starter.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, as all processor power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, 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 experience exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.
Starter.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Starter.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Unohostclr.exe, Jg6_6asg.exe, Menu.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Starter.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your computer. Starter.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To carry out 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 recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, running at peak level for long times may cause damage to your machine as well as raise power expenses. PC components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Small and well-protected processor cooling system is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for instance, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by Starter.exe virus can easily lead to GPU failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have fast wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely a bad case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Starter.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
Another way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the unreliable site as a part of a program. People who spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. Therefore, there is a very big temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for each setup. Prior to blaming these people for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Starter.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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, just like the majority of non-critical operating system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability 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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