X.x.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

X.x.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 system pretty much unusable because of high CPU utilization.

What is X.x.exe process?

X.x.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus

Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will likely struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so X.x.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may cause bad results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

Cryptocurrency mining means the activity of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral part of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a very strong PC is needed. Exactly, the video card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms are usually constructed of tens and hundreds of video cards to conduct their activity effectively. Such computer systems are not usable for “general” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Fraudsters who make profit via this coin miner use someones’ hardware instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.

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 X.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.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 needs, 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 incredibly slow performance. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will take about a minute – just a headache for a person that does a job online.

X.x.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” harm is not a single unpleasant thing coin miners do to your system. X.x.exe coin miner also deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malicious operations effectively, it ruins the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new notes – they are brought in by this coin 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 PC recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides decreasing your computer’s performance, performing at peak power for a long period of time can trigger damage to your machine as well as raise power costs. PC elements are created to easily deal with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.

Tiny and well-protected processor cooling system is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, GPUs have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if touched while spinning, for example, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by X.x.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure. GPUs are also tend to have fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely an unwanted situation when the performance of your GPU plunges 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being used in such a way.

How did I get X.x.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 prevalent malevolent programs through “serious” viruses. Adware frequently functions as a carrier for X.x.exe malware injection: it shows you the banners, which include a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that approximately 30% of all malware spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and X.x.exe is right with them.

Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the suspicious site as a part of a program. People who spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to make money. Therefore, there is a huge temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for every setup. Before blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid paying for the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software and new parts for your computer.

How to remove the X.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 software, along with the majority of non-critical system components, are not started with the system start. That allows you to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.