X.exe process comes from a malicious application that can correctly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware form utilizes your PC components to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system almost nonfunctional due to high CPU utilization.
What is X.exe process?
X.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
X.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU use
Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their tasks. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as essential as CPU for system work, so X.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It often may cause sad results.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the X.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
First, X.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, since all processor power is consumed by a virus. That malware does not care for your wants, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience exceptionally slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person that does a job online.
X.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | X.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Gpu.exe, Msdwf.exe, Cftmon.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic X.exe removal. |
“Visible” harm is not a solitary negative activity coin miners do to your personal computer. X.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To carry out all malevolent functions effectively, it wrecks the security features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be gone back to the initial state in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides slowing down your computer, performing at peak power for a long period of time may trigger damage to your device and raise electricity costs. PC elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.
Small and covered processor fan is hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for instance, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the extremely high load caused by X.exe can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Video cards are also prone to have increased wearing when used for crypto mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance plunges 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.
How did I get X.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
One more way you could get this thing on your computer is by downloading it from the unreliable site as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of well-known programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to make money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for each installation. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK 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 PC.
How to remove the X.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 computer is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-critical system components, are not launched with the system start. That allows you to clean the system without dealing with high processor 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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