X$x.exe process comes from a harmful program that can accurately be recognized as a coin miner trojan virus. That malware form utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your computer pretty much unfunctional because of high CPU use.
What is X$x.exe process?
X$x.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
X$x.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU usage
Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that instance, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so X$x.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often can lead to bad effects.
Shortly about cryptocurrency mining
List of the typical coin miner symptoms
How dangerous is the X$x.exe miner?
Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system
Initially, X$x.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, since all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your demands, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience incredibly slow efficiency. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.
X$x.exe Technical Summary.
| File Name | X$x.exe |
| Type | Trojan Coin Miner |
| Detection Name | Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner |
| Distribution Method | Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc. |
| Similar behavior | Rundll32.exe, Msedge.exe, Ntoskrnl.exe |
| Removal | Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic X$x.exe removal. |
“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your personal computer. X$x.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your OS. To execute all malicious operations successfully, it ruins the security mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to avoid recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes shall be reverted to the original in the process of computer recovery.
Hardware effects of coin miner activity
Besides decreasing your computer’s performance, running at peak power for long times can cause damage to your device and increase power costs. Hardware elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.
Compact and covered processor cooling system is hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while running, for instance, by the user much before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the very high load caused by X$x.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure3. GPUs are also tend to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when the performance of your graphic card 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
The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet
An additional way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the dubious website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not need the license key) have small chances to earn money. Hence, there is a very big lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every installation. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it alright to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 one time than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.
How to remove the X$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 PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, along with the majority of non-crucial 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
- 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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