Yakopayu.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Yakopayu.exe process comes from a malevolent program that can properly be recognized as a coin miner trojan. That malware form uses your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, primarily – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your personal computer pretty much unfunctional due to high CPU usage.

What is Yakopayu.exe process?

Yakopayu.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Yakopayu.exe Windows Process

Yakopayu.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that instance, you will struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Yakopayu.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes may lead to bad results.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Microsoft Defender is stopped;
  • CPU and GPU is loaded at 80-90% exactly after the system start
  • Cooling fans are running at high speed and create a lot of noise
  • A single process in Task Manager consumes all CPU and GPU power
  • How dangerous is the Yakopayu.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    Firstly, Yakopayu.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, since all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your demands, all it focuses on is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until web browser is open, you will likely experience extremely sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person that works online.

    Yakopayu.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Yakopayu.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Verus.solver, Btg.exe, Conhost_syn.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Yakopayu.exe removal.

    “Visible” harm is not a single bad thing coin miners do to your personal computer. Yakopayu.exe coin miner additionally deals damage to your operating system. To complete all malevolent functions correctly, it wrecks the protection components 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 entries – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be gone back to the original in the process of PC recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides making your PC slow, running at peak level for long times may cause damage to your device as well as raise power bills. Hardware components are created to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.

    Compact and covered processor cooling system is quite hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if touched while spinning, for instance, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Yakopayu.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure3. GPUs are also prone to have very fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after several weeks of being used in such a way.

    How did I get Yakopayu.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    One more way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the dubious site as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. For this reason, there is a very big temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and get a coin for every installation. Prior to criticizing these guys for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay to avoid purchasing the program in such a way? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus program and new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Yakopayu.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.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    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.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your system is in Safe Mode, all third-party software, along with the majority of non-crucial operating system 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.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

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    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

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