Msvc.exe CPU Miner

The Msvc.exe CPU Miner is a Trojan that is used to mine Bitcoin and Monero digital currencies using the resources of compromised machines. The Msvc.exe CPU Miner is a version of the XMRig CPU Miner Trojan that appeared on AV reports in April 2017. The XMRig CPU Miner has a legitimate version released via h[tt]ps://github[.]com/xmrig/xmrig but malware authors have abused the open-source nature of the project and implemented it into their activities. Since April 2017 the XMRig Trojan received several updates and features several forks that include the Winserv.exe CPU Miner and the VMProtect Miner Trojan. The Msvc.exe CPU Miner is classified as the third release of XMRig variants chronologically.
 
Users reported finding a process named 'msvc.exe' in their task manager, which hijacked a little more than 60% of the available processing power on their system. While it is deemed as inefficient to mine for BTC and XMR on single machines, it is proven profitable to use a network of computers running the same mining software. That is why the creators of the Msvc.exe CPU Miner aim to infect as many PCs as possible through the use of spam emails, links to compromised sites and fake updates to Java and Adobe Flash. We have found that the Msvc.exe CPU Miner is likely to install its files to 'C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\msvc\msvc.exe' and add an automated task to the startup list. The task responsible for launching the Msvc.exe CPU Miner is reported to feature the name 'AsCDPro.vbs' and utilize a simple Visual Basic Script to run 'msvc.exe' in the system background.
 
Computers that have been compromised by the Msvc.exe CPU Miner Trojan may not respond to commands as fast as before, and you may experience program crashes. The Msvc.exe CPU Miner uses a lot of processing power, and that leads to increased electricity consumption and increased temperature. Needless to say, running the Msvc.exe CPU Miner can prove detrimental in the long run and cause system instability in prolonged usage. Legitimate CPU and GPU mining programs have the same drawbacks, and that is why PC users should approach this type of software cautiously. AV scanners might flag the Msvc.exe CPU Miner as:

• RiskWare[RiskTool]/Win32.BitCoinMiner
• TROJ_GEN.R004C0OJR17
• Troj.W32.Miner!c
• Trojan.BitCoinMiner.CJ
• Trojan.CoinMiner!1.ADB8 (CLASSIC)
• Trojan/Win64.BitCoinMiner.R206643
• Unwanted-Program ( 005136261 )
• W64/Trojan.KQCR-6159