What is Voldriver.exe process?

As I have actually mentioned in the previous paragraph, Voldriver.exe is a coin miner trojan. The names of the executive file may be different, however, the effects are almost always the same. Since coin miners aim at cryptocurrency mining, they use all available hardware power of your desktop to perform this procedure. This virus does not pay attention to the fact that you may need to make use of your device for other tasks – it will always take over 80% of your CPU power.

Voldriver.exe – Extremely high CPU as well as GPU use

Besides CPU consumption, some of the coin miners also use GPU power for their operations. In that situation, you will struggle also to see the mouse arrow moving – GPU is often utilized on 100%. It is not as critical as CPU for system work, so Voldriver.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and utilize all of it. It sometimes can result in unhappy effects.

Crypto mining term 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 high-end desktop is needed. Exactly, the GPU is better for this purpose, because they have more cores available. Cryptocurrency mining farms usually consist of tens and hundreds of video cards to complete their task efficiently. Such systems are not usable for “normal” purposes, like gaming or web browsing. Crooks who gain money via this coin miner use someones’ hardware instead, even if they are used for the regular activity.²

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

How dangerous is the Voldriver.exe miner?

First off, Voldriver.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 focuses on is generating profits on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely experience exceptionally sluggish efficiency. Pages will open for years, any type of logins will likely take about a minute – just a horror story for a person who does a job online.

Voldriver.exe Technical Summary.

“Visible” harm is not a solitary unpleasant activity coin miners perform to your system. Voldriver.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To conduct all malevolent functions properly, it ruins the protection components 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 number of new entries – they are added by this trojan miner to connect your computer to a malicious cryptomining network. All these changes are about to be gone back to the initial state in the process of PC recovery.

Hardware effects of coin miner activity

Besides slowing down your PC, performing at peak power for long times can trigger damage to your device as well as increase electricity costs. Hardware elements are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.

Little and covered processor fan is quite hard to broke. Meanwhile, graphic cards have big and easy-to-access fans, which can be easily broke if touched while working, for example, by the user much earlier before the virus injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the really high load caused by Voldriver.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure³. GPUs are also tend to have fast wearing when used for cryptocurrency mining. It is surely a bad situation when the performance of your graphic card decreases on 20-30% only after several weeks of being used in such a way.

How did I get Voldriver.exe coin miner virus?

Coin miners are the most prevalent malevolent programs through “severe” malware. Adware often works as a carrier for Voldriver.exe malware infiltration: it demonstrates you the banners, which have a link to malware downloading. Yes, this abstract “malware” may belong to any type – another adware, spyware, rogue or backdoor. However, the statistics say that about 30% of all malware spread through the malicious banners are coin miners – and Voldriver.exe is just one of them.⁴

The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

An additional way you could get this thing on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. People who spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. Therefore, there is a very big lure to add in malware to the final package of the hacked app and acquire a coin for each setup. Prior to criticizing these people for hacking and malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is much cheaper to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much greater figure for antivirus software as well as new parts for your PC.

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

Removing such a virus demands the use of specific tool. Effective anti-malware program must have high performance at scanning and also be lightweight – in order to make no problems with utilization also on weak systems. In addition, it is recommended to have proactive protection in your protection solution – to halt the virus even before it starts. Microsoft Defender does not have these elements for different reasons. That’s why I’d suggest you to use a third-party anti-malware program for that objective. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is a great choice that fits each of the mentioned qualities.⁵

Prior to the malware removal, it is important to boot your system into Safe Mode with Networking. Since Voldriver.exe miner consumes a lot of processor power, it is required to stop 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 applications, along with the majority of non-critical operating system 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 Voldriver.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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