Wsmprovhost.exe process belongs to a harmful program that can accurately be identified as a coin miner trojan. That malware type uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, basically – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer roughly unusable because of high CPU utilization.
What is Wsmprovhost.exe process?
Wsmprovhost.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
As I have specified in the introduction, Wsmprovhost.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the .exe file can be diverse, but the effects are almost always the identical. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware capacity of your desktop to conduct this process. This virus doesn’t take note of the fact that you may need to make use of your computer for other tasks – it will consistently use over 80% of your processor power.
Wsmprovhost.exe – Very high CPU/GPU usage
Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally utilize 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 Wsmprovhost.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may lead to unhappy consequences.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining is a term that means the activity of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral part of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a high-end PC is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of tens and hundreds of graphic cards to conduct their activity effectively. 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 Wsmprovhost.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First off, Wsmprovhost.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, since all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from incredibly slow performance. Pages will open for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that works online.
Wsmprovhost.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | Wsmprovhost.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Devicepairingwizard.exe, Devicepairingwizard.exe, Pickerhost.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Wsmprovhost.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single unpleasant thing coin miners do to your personal computer. Wsmprovhost.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malicious operations successfully, it ruins the protection components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious cryptomining network. All these adjustments shall be gone back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your system’s performance, running at peak power for a long period of time may trigger damage to your machine and increase 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.
Compact and covered processor cooling system is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while spinning, for example, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by Wsmprovhost.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also tend to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when the performance of your video card plunges 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.
How did I get Wsmprovhost.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 malevolent programs through “major” malware. Adware often acts as a carrier for Wsmprovhost.exe malware injection: it shows you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics say that approximately 30% of all malware spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Wsmprovhost.exe is right among them.4
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 dubious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked variants of popular 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 receive a coin for each setup. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid paying for the program in such a way? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the Wsmprovhost.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 needs making use of special program. Proper security tool must have high performance at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to create no problems with usage also on weak PCs. Additionally, it is recommended to have on-run protection in your protection tool – to halt the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender does not have these features for various factors. That’s why I’d recommend you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that goal. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is an ideal choice that fits each of the mentioned characteristics.5
Prior to the malware removal, it is important to boot your system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Wsmprovhost.exe miner consumes a lot of processor power, it is needed to stop 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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party programs, just like the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.
Remove Wsmprovhost.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 Wsmprovhost.exe Virus ⛏️ Trojan Coin Miner
Name: Wsmprovhost.exe
Description: The Wsmprovhost.exe is a Trojan Coin Miner that uses the infected computer’s sources to mine electronic money without your authorization. This Wsmprovhost.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.
