Fawe.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

What is Fawe.exe process?

As I have mentioned before, Fawe.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file can be different, but the consequences are usually the identical. Because coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they utilize all possible hardware capacity of your PC to conduct this procedure. This virus does not pay attention to the fact that you probably want to use your machine for other activities – it will consistently use over 80% of your processor power.

Fawe.exe – Really high CPU and GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is often used on 100%. It is not as important as CPU for system work, so Fawe.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use all of it. It often may lead to unhappy effects.

Cryptocurrency mining is a term that means the operation of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this action takes a lot of calculations, a strong computer is required. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptomining farms usually consist of dozens of GPUs to conduct their activity effectively. Such computer systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Fraudsters 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 Fawe.exe miner?

First off, Fawe.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, because all processor power is consumed by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, 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 suffer from extremely slow efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any kind of logins will likely take about a minute – just a headache for a person who works online.

Fawe.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” damage is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your computer. Fawe.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your operating system. To execute all malevolent functions effectively, it wrecks the protection features of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to avoid recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new entries – they are added by this coin miner to connect your computer to a malicious mining network. All these changes are about to be thrown back to the original in the process of PC recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides slowing down your computer, performing at peak level for long times may trigger damage to your machine and increase electricity bills. Hardware components are designed to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only in case when they are in a good shape.

Small and well-protected processor cooling system is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have large and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily cracked if touched while working, for instance, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Fawe.exe malware can easily lead to graphic card failure³. Graphic cards are also prone to have increased wearing when utilized for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely an undesirable situation when the performance of your video card decreases on 20-30% only after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

How did I get Fawe.exe coin miner virus?

Coin miners are the most widespread malicious programs among “severe” malware. Adware frequently acts as a carrier for Fawe.exe malware injection: it demonstrates you the banners, which contain a link to malware downloading. Sure, this abstract “malware” can belong to any kind – an additional adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics show that approximately 30% of all viruses spread with the malicious banners are coin miners – and Fawe.exe is just among them.⁴

The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

One more way you could get this thing on your PC is by downloading it from the suspicious web page as a part of a program. People that spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to get paid. Hence, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for every setup. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and also malware distribution, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid purchasing the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your computer.

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

Removing such a virus demands using specific tool. Effective anti-malware program should have high efficiency at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to make no problems with utilization even on weak systems. In addition, it is recommended to have on-run security in your security solution – to halt the virus even before it launches. Microsoft Defender does not have these functions for various reasons. That’s why I’d suggest you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that reason. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is an ideal option that fits all of the mentioned characteristics.⁵

Before the malware removal, it is important to boot your operating system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Fawe.exe miner takes a lot of processor capacity, 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 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 computer without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

Remove Fawe.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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