Prime.exe

Users who notice an unfamiliar process named 'Prime.exe' running on their computers, might have become a victim of a coin miner infection. This malware type is designed specifically to hijack the hardware capacity of the breached device and utilize it to mine for coins belonging to a specific crypto-currency, usually Monero, Ethereum, DarkCoin, etc.

The initial impact of the threat could manifest in mostly annoying consequences. Users could notice that their systems are extremely slow to respond, launching programs takes unusually long, and sometimes the system could suffer a critical error. The exact effect of having Prime.exe running on your system will depend on the level of CPU or GPU capacity taken up by the coin miner. If it is in the high 80% or more, then there will be almost zero resources left for the normal operations of the system or any other actions that users might want to perform.

However, putting the hardware of the system under such high usage over a prolonged period could generate excessive amounts of heat. If the cooling of the system fails to properly dissipate this build of heat, it could cause serious damage and some hardware parts could start to malfunction.

Trending

Most Viewed

Loading...