Energy.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

What is Energy.exe process?

As I have actually pointed out earlier, Energy.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file may be different, but the effects are almost always the identical. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all possible hardware capacity of your desktop to run this procedure. This virus does not care about the fact that you may need to make use of your desktop for other tasks – it will constantly consume over 80% of your processor power.

Energy.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU usage

Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally make use of GPU power for their operations. In that instance, you will likely 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 Energy.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize it all. It sometimes may result in sad results.

Crypto mining means the operation of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a basic part of any project based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a very powerful desktop is required. Exactly, the graphic card is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms usually consist of dozens of graphic cards to complete their task efficiently. Such systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Crooks who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ computers instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.²

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

How dangerous is the Energy.exe miner?

First of all, Energy.exe malware makes your PC overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, since all processor power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your wants, all it pays attention to 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 kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person that does a job online.

Energy.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” damage is not a solitary unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your computer. Energy.exe coin miner also deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious operations successfully, it ruins the protection components of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you open the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new entries – they are brought in by this coin miner to connect your system to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be thrown 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 level for a long period of time can trigger damage to your machine as well as increase power expenses. Hardware elements are designed to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only in case when they are in a good shape.

Compact and covered CPU fan is hard to damage. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily broke if touched while running, for instance, by the user much before the coin-miner injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Energy.exe virus can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure³. Graphic cards are also tend to have increased wearing when used for crypto mining. It is likely a bad 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 Energy.exe coin miner virus?

Coin miners are one of the most widespread malicious programs among “severe” viruses. Adware often functions as a carrier for Energy.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any type – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. But the statistics show that around 30% of all viruses spread with the malevolent banners are coin miners – and Energy.exe is just with them.⁴

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 unreliable website as a part of a program. Users that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not demand the license key) have small chances to get paid. 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 distribution, ask yourself – is it OK 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 sum for antivirus program and new parts for your computer.

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

Getting rid of such a virus involves making use of special tool. Appropriate anti-malware program should have high efficiency at scanning and be lightweight – in order to make no problems with utilization also on weak computers. Furthermore, it is better to have proactive security in your protection solution – to halt the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender does not have these functions 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 superb option that fits each of the discussed characteristics.⁵

Prior to the malware removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Energy.exe miner consumes a lot of processor capacity, it is required 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, just like the majority of non-crucial 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.

Remove Energy.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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