What is Cleanwork.exe process?

As I have pointed out before, Cleanwork.exe is a coin miner virus. The names of the .exe file can be diverse, however, the impacts are usually the identical. Since coin miners focus on cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware power of your personal computer to perform this process. This malware does not pay attention to the fact that you probably need to use your PC for other tasks – it will consistently consume over 80% of your processor power.

Cleanwork.exe – Extremely high CPU and GPU usage

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will probably struggle also to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually used on 100%. It is not as important as processor for system work, so Cleanwork.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It often may result in sad consequences.

Cryptocurrency mining means the activity of calculating the transaction block hash. That is a integral element of anything based on the blockchain technology. Since this operation takes a lot of calculations, a high-end PC is needed. Exactly, the graphic card is better for this task, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms usually consist of dozens of graphic cards to complete their task efficiently. Such computer systems are not usable for “classic” purposes, like gaming or browsing the Web. Fraudsters who make profit 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 Cleanwork.exe miner?

First of all, Cleanwork.exe virus makes your PC overloaded. It is unable to run your applications anymore, as all CPU power is used by a virus. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it focuses on 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 nightmare for a person who works online.

Cleanwork.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” harm is not a single unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your PC. Cleanwork.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To complete all malicious operations effectively, it wrecks the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent recognition. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a lot of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these adjustments shall be reverted to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides slowing down your PC, running at peak level for long times can cause damage to your device and increase electricity costs. PC components are created to easily get along with high load, but they are good with it only when they are in a good shape.

Small and well-protected processor cooling system is quite hard to crack. Meanwhile, GPUs have big 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 extremely high load caused by Cleanwork.exe can easily lead to graphic processing unit failure³. GPUs are also tend to have very fast wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is surely an unwanted situation when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being exploited in such a way.

How did I get Cleanwork.exe coin miner virus?

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

The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

Another way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. People that spread hacked versions of well-known programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. Thus, there is a very big temptation to add malware to the final package of the hacked application and acquire a coin for each installation. Prior to blaming these individuals for hacking and malware distribution, ask yourself – is it okay 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 figure for antivirus program as well as new parts for your computer.

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

Getting rid of such a virus requires making use of specific program. Appropriate security tool should have high efficiency at scanning and be lightweight – in order to make no problems with usage even on weak computers. Additionally, it is better to have proactive security in your protection tool – to stop the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender lacks these elements for various factors. That’s why I’d suggest you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that objective. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is an ideal option that fits all of the discussed features.⁵

Prior to the virus removal, it is important to boot your system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Cleanwork.exe miner takes a lot of processor power, 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 system is in Safe Mode, all third-party software, just like the majority of non-crucial Windows components, are not launched with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the system without dealing with high processor usage of the coin miner.

Remove Cleanwork.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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