Visualfeatures.exe executable file belongs to a harmful program that can correctly be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware type utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is Visualfeatures.exe process?
Visualfeatures.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Visualfeatures.exe – Very high CPU as well as GPU use
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so Visualfeatures.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It sometimes may cause bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining means the operation of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful machine is required. Exactly, the video card is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms are usually constructed of dozens of GPUs to complete their task efficiently. Such systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ PCs instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.2
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the Visualfeatures.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, Visualfeatures.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is not able to run your applications now, because all processor power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your wants, all it pays attention to is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any sort of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who does a job online.
Visualfeatures.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Visualfeatures.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Rockstarservice.exe, Nahimicapisvc64.exe, Originclientservice.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Visualfeatures.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners do to your PC. Visualfeatures.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To perform all malicious operations successfully, it ruins the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a load of new notes – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your system to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments are about to be gone back to the initial state in the process of system recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your PC’s performance, running at peak level for a long period of time may cause damage to your machine and increase power bills. PC components 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 well-protected processor cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if touched while spinning, for example, by the user much before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Visualfeatures.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. Video cards are also tend to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable case when the performance of your graphic card plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get Visualfeatures.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 widespread malicious programs through “serious” malware. Adware often serves as a carrier for Visualfeatures.exe malware infiltration: it demonstrates you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” may belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics say that around 30% of all malware spread with the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Visualfeatures.exe is just one of them.
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 untrustworthy website 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 earn money. For this reason, there is a very big temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for every installation. Before blaming these individuals for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater sum for antivirus program as well as new parts for your PC.
How to remove the Visualfeatures.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 applications, just like the majority of non-crucial system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you 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.
- Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
- About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
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