These bastards are quietly devouring my computer!

Damn, I only noticed yesterday that my old laptop has started to slow down like a turtle! I thought it was just time to take it to the dump, but it turned out that some parasite is mining cryptocurrency on it! And it doesn't even share, the bastard!

What kind of beast is a miner virus?

Imagine - some hacker broke into your computer and simply uses it as his personal mining farm. He stole your electricity, maxed out your CPU and GPU, and you sit there wondering why everything is so slow.

And what is especially annoying is that these creatures do not steal your passwords or card information. No, they only want your resources. That's why antivirus programs often let such "harmless" malware through.

How I realized that I was robbed

My faithful laptop suddenly started heating up like a frying pan. The fans were screaming as if I had launched a new Crysis, although I just opened the browser! The processor is constantly under 90% load. And electricity... the bill came in so high that I almost fainted.

If you have:

• The brake is slowing down on flat ground
• The laptop battery drains in an hour
• The fans scream like on takeoff
• The processor loads during idle

Then you most likely have this parasite!

How I Caught Him

I opened the task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc - remember this combination!) and was shocked - some unknown process was consuming 80% of my CPU! It could be called anything - "sysprocess.exe", "updater64" or some other innocent nonsense.

Then I launched Kaspersky antivirus ( not an ad, it just happened to be on my computer ). But you know what? This program let the infection through! I had to install Malwarebytes, which finally found this nasty thing.

Where did this virus come from?

I confess honestly - I recently downloaded a "free" Photoshop from a torrent. Here we go. These miners love to infiltrate pirated software, cracks, and other dubious programs.

They can also access through:

• Phishing emails ( like "your bank requires...")
• Adult sites ( well, you understood... )
• Just through vulnerabilities in the browser

How I Kicked Him Out

1. Killed all suspicious processes in the task manager
2. I launched Malwarebytes and gave it free rein.
3. Removed all unfamiliar programs from startup
4. Cleared the browser of strange extensions

And for the future - I installed AdBlock, which blocks mining scripts in the browser.

In particularly severe cases, a complete system reinstall may be required, but I was lucky - it was a minor issue.

So check your comp! Don't let these parasites profit off you. Let them mine on their own hardware, not steal your resources!