Deva.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

What is Deva.exe process?

As I have actually mentioned in the previous paragraph, Deva.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file can be different, however, the impacts are almost always the identical. Because coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they utilize all possible hardware capacity of your PC to conduct this operation. This virus does not care about the fact that you may want to use your machine for other activities – it will consistently take over 80% of your processor power.

Deva.exe – Extremely high CPU/GPU usage

Besides CPU usage, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that case, you will struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so Deva.exe coin miner viruses do not waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It often may cause unhappy effects.

Crypto mining means the action of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic element of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful machine is required. Exactly, the video card is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms are usually constructed of tens and hundreds of GPUs to conduct their activity effectively. Such systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who make profit 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 Deva.exe miner?

Firstly, Deva.exe malware makes your computer overloaded. It is not able to run your applications anymore, as all CPU power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on is making money on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely struggle with extremely slow performance. Pages can open up for years, any type of logins will take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who works online.

Deva.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” damage is not a solitary bad activity coin miners perform to your computer. Deva.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malevolent functions successfully, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware halts it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be reverted to the original in the process of system recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides slowing down your computer, running at peak power for a long period of time can cause damage to your device and raise electricity expenses. Hardware elements are designed to easily deal with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.

Tiny and well-protected CPU cooling system is hard to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if affected while working, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Deva.exe miner can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure³. Graphic cards are also tend to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is likely an unwanted case when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

How did I get Deva.exe coin miner virus?

Coin miners are the most prevalent malicious programs among “major” viruses. Adware often works as a carrier for Deva.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – yet another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics show that around 30% of all viruses spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Deva.exe is right one of them.⁴

The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

Another way you could get this item on your computer is by downloading it from the unreliable 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. For this reason, there is a huge lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and get a coin for each installation. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.

How to remove the Deva.exe miner from my PC?

Removing such a virus needs using special program. Appropriate antivirus should have high efficiency at scanning and be lightweight – in order to make no problems with utilization also on weak systems. On top of that, it is recommended to have on-run protection in your protection solution – to halt the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender does not have these elements for different reasons. That’s why I’d suggest you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that reason. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a great option that fits all of the discussed qualities.⁵

Prior to the malware removal, it is important to boot your Windows into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Deva.exe miner consumes a lot of CPU power, it is needed to halt 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 PC 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 PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

Remove Deva.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.

References

1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
2. Detailed explanation of how does cryptomining work.
3. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.
4. Read more about various malware type on GridinSoft Threat Encyclopedia.
5. Our review on GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

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