Diet.exe

Computer users who notice an unfamiliar process named Diet.exe running in the background of their systems might be a victim of a Trojan infection. More specifically, this process has been connected to a crypto-miner threat, designed to take control of the breached device's hardware resources and use them to mine for a specific cryptocurrency.

Crypto-miners generally behave in an identical manner. They will try to hide their presence while generating as many crypto coins as possible for their operators. Some malware of this type forgo stealthiness and simply take as much of the available resources as possible. In these cases, users may notice that a strange process is consuming over 90% of the CPU or GPU output. As a result, the system may be left with below the minimal required resources to run normally. Users could start experiencing frequent crashes, freezes, slowdowns, etc.

More importantly, the constant pressure on the hardware components could generate excessive heat. If the cooling of the system gets overwhelmed, the GPU, CPU, motherboard, and other hardware parts could overheat, shortening their expected lifespan or even causing permanent damage.