How to Remove Coin Miner Trojan

This article can help you to remove Coin Miner Virus. The step by step removal works for every version of Microsoft Windows.

Everyone is mining cyber-coins nowadays. For some, it’s a hobby, for others — a way to make a living. Of course, there is a third category. The crooks are also trying to take advantage of the new technology. But they don’t plan on investing in hardware. No, they have found a way to mine the coins without having to buy anything. They employ Trojan horses and steal your resources. You can easily tell if your computer is infected by one. The symptoms are quite obvious: general system underperformance, overheating, slow and unstable Internet connection, and system crashes. You will notice that your apps take forever to load. Some programs of yours may freeze and crash frequently. Odd errors may pop up for no apparent reason. These are the symptoms, but what happens to your system? Well, once on board, the Coin Miner Trojan modifies your Registry, corrupts essential system files and process. It then starts its own processes and camouflages them. From this point onward, your machine works for the crooks. The Trojan forces your device to perform accounting operations for a coin platform. In exchange for its services, your device gets rewarded with fractions of the coin. Thus, the longer it serves, the bigger the profit. And here’s the catch. The coins are not transferred to you, but to the crooks’ cyber-wallet. The only thing you get from the mining process is a headache and hardware damage. The Trojan is very likely to wear out your hardware. If you don’t take prompt action against this intruder, you are very likely to end up with a useless machine. So, don’t waste your time. Remove the Coin Miner Trojan as soon as possible!

How did I get infected with?

The Coin Miner Trojan did not hack your computer. No, it uses far more mundane methods to reach its victims. The parasite lurks behind software bundles, fake updates, rogue software, and torrents. Of course, the good old spam emails are also often used for distribution purposes. All these methods have something in common: they rely on your (the user’s) carelessness and naivety. If you are vigilant and doubting, you can prevent them from succeeding. Even a little extra caution goes a long way. Let’s take the spam emails as an example. The crooks attach malicious files and embed corrupted links. That is all they do. Everything else is up to you. If you don’t click, your computer won’t get infected. This task is not easy, though. The crooks write on behalf of well-known organizations, companies, banks, post offices, etc. They want to grab your attention. Once they got you on the hook, you are very likely to follow their instructions. Therefore, if you receive an unexpected message, don’t open it. Verify the sender first. You can simply enter the questionable email address into some search engine. If it was used for shady business, someone might have complained. If the message is from an organization, you can visit their official website. Compare the email addresses listed there with the one you have received a letter from. If they don’t match, delete the pretender immediately. The Internet is a dangerous place. Only you can keep your PC virus-free. So, don’t be negligent. Always do your due diligence.

Why is this dangerous?

The Coin Miner Trojan should not be underestimated. It steals what our device has to offer and leaves nothing for you. The parasite causes your machine to underperform. Your poor computer is so slow that you cannot get a simple task done. Every app you load freezes and crashes. You cannot surf the web normally. Your Internet connection is too unstable. And of course, your system crashes due to overheating. You cannot use your device normally. And if you don’t do something about the Trojan, your conditions will worsen. This intruder threatens to damage your hardware. If you check your machine now, you will notice the heat it radiates. This heat is bad for your hardware. The Trojan shortens your CPU’s life significantly. When your machine overheats, it crashes. These crashes too, have side effects. They led to data loss and the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. And of course, we should not forget that the heat was originally electricity. To run its process, the Coin Miner Trojan needs a lot of energy. So, do not be surprised when your next electricity bill arrives. The coin mining is profitable only if you don’t use your own resources. The crooks are using yours. They are making a mint at your expense. Don’t become their sponsor. Clean your computer the first chance you get. You can do it either manually or automatically. Choose your method and act. The sooner you get rid of the Trojan, the better!

Manual Coin Miner Removal Instructions

The Coin Miner infection is specifically designed to make money to its creators one way or another. The specialists from various antivirus companies like Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Norton, Avast, ESET, etc. advise that there is no harmless virus.

If you perform exactly the steps below you should be able to remove the Coin Miner infection. Please, follow the procedures in the exact order. Please, consider to print this guide or have another computer at your disposal. You will NOT need any USB sticks or CDs.

STEP 1: Track down Coin Miner related processes in the computer memory

STEP 2: Locate Coin Miner startup location

STEP 3: Delete Coin Miner traces from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

STEP 4: Undo the damage done by the virus

STEP 1: Track down Coin Miner related processes in the computer memory

• Open your Task Manager by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC keys simultaneously
• Carefully review all processes and stop the suspicious ones.

• Write down the file location for later reference.

Step 2: Locate Coin Miner startup location

Reveal Hidden Files

• Open any folder
• Click on “Organize” button
  
• Choose “Folder and Search Options”
• Select the “View” tab
• Select “Show hidden files and folders” option
• Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”
• Click “Apply” and “OK” button

Clean Coin Miner virus from the windows registry

• Once the operating system loads press simultaneously the Windows Logo Button and the R key.

• A dialog box should open. Type “Regedit”

• WARNING! be very careful when editing the Microsoft Windows Registry as this may render the system broken.

Depending on your OS (x86 or x64) navigate to:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] or
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] or
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

• and delete the display Name: [RANDOM]

• Then open your explorer and navigate to: %appdata% folder and delete the malicious executable.

Clean your HOSTS file to avoid unwanted browser redirection

Navigate to %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/host

If you are hacked, there will be foreign IPs addresses connected to you at the bottom. Take a look below:

Step 4: Undo the possible damage done by Coin Miner

This particular Virus may alter your DNS settings.

Attention! this can break your internet connection. Before you change your DNS settings to use Google Public DNS for Coin Miner, be sure to write down the current server addresses on a piece of paper.

To fix the damage done by the virus you need to do the following.

• Click the Windows Start button to open the Start Menu, type control panel in the search box and select Control Panel in the results displayed above.
• go to Network and Internet
• then Network and Sharing Center
• then Change Adapter Settings
• Right-click on your active internet connection and click properties. Under the Networking tab, find Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4). Left click on it and then click on properties. Both options should be automatic! By default it should be set to “Obtain an IP address automatically” and the second one to “Obtain DNS server address automatically!” If they are not just change them, however if you are part of a domain network you should contact your Domain Administrator to set these settings, otherwise the internet connection will break!!!

 

• Check your scheduled tasks to make sure the virus will not download itself again.

How to Permanently Remove Coin Miner Virus (automatic) Removal Guide

Please, have in mind that once you are infected with a single virus, it compromises your whole system or network and let all doors wide open for many other infections. To make sure manual removal is successful, we recommend to use a free scanner of any professional antimalware program to identify possible virus leftovers or temporary files.