Tahoo.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Tahoo.exe process comes from a harmful application that can properly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer almost nonfunctional because of high CPU utilization.

What is Tahoo.exe process?

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

Tahoo.exe – Very high CPU and GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as vital as CPU for system work, so Tahoo.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes can result in unhappy effects.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Your device overheats (system unit/laptop body is very hot)
  • You are not able to open your apps or they are opening for ages
  • Unknown process is running in the background and consumes your PC resources
  • Windows Defender does not respond
  • How dangerous is the Tahoo.exe miner?

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

    First, Tahoo.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, because all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your needs, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages will open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who does a job online.

    Tahoo.exe Technical Summary.

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

    “Visible” damage is not a solitary negative activity coin miners do to your system. Tahoo.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To conduct all malicious operations effectively, it wrecks the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a number of new notes – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of computer recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak power for a long period of time may trigger damage to your machine and raise power bills. PC 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 CPU fan is quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if affected while spinning, for example, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Tahoo.exe malware can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is likely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Tahoo.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

    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. People that spread hacked variants of favored programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to get paid. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for each installation. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid paying for 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 computer.

    How to remove the Tahoo.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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, just like the majority of non-crucial operating system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC 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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