Remove Cryptonight virus (JS:Cryptonight trojan) from Windows

Learn how to get rid of the annoying cryptocurrency miner called Cryptonight that covertly uses one’s computing power without asking for user authorization.

It’s obvious that cryptocurrency is the next big thing, making up a whole new economy that’s growing at an extremely rapid rate. This powerful unregulated market couldn’t possibly keep cybercriminals on the sidewalk. Some of these crooks have contrived a way to weaponize the coin mining process. Ideally, this activity implies the availability of substantial CPU and GPU resources to be used for maintaining the validity of transactions in the blockchain. A widespread exploitation vector involves perpetrating code dubbed Cryptonight. When a computer is infected with it, the baddie takes advantage of the host’s processing power to fulfill mathematical tasks required for mining. As a result, memory consumption soars up to 100% and the machine may slow down to a crawl.

For the record, Cryptonight is a legit algorithm created for mining a type of digital cash like Monero or Bitcoin. Threat actors have come to leverage it in a sneaky way. Those infected never opted for allowing any third party code to mine coins at the expense of their PCs. This is the main concern regarding this unwelcome activity. The prevalent entry point for this infection is software bundles, where benign applications are installed alongside malicious ones so that users don’t even notice the nefarious extras. When inside and running, the pest fires up JavaScript code that establishes connection with one of IP addresses designed specifically for cryptocurrency mining. The involvement of JavaScript is the reason why some security suites flag this code as JS:Cryptonight, or JS:Cryptonight [Trj], where the part in brackets stands for ‘Trojan’.

Ultimately, the functioning of the malware in question boils down to performing commonplace mining operations, except that they are not authorized by the user. The bad code is typically launched according to a predefined schedule. For instance, it may go off every day at 11 p.m. As it has been mentioned above, Cryptonight may use up to 100% CPU or GPU capacity, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand what kind of effect this may have on the plagued workstation. It becomes slow and irresponsive even to simple commands. To top it all off, the speed of Internet connection gets reduced by far due to constant siphoning of traffic in the background. This whole predicament isn’t a favorable scenario for anyone infected, so it’s strongly recommended to clean up the affected system without delay.

Automated removal of Cryptonight virus

Owing to an up-to-date database of malware signatures and intelligent behavioral detection, the recommended software can quickly locate the infection, eradicate it and remediate all harmful changes. So go ahead and do the following:

1. Download and install the antimalware tool. Open the solution and have it check your PC for PUPs and other types of malicious software by clicking the Start Computer Scan button

Download Cryptonight virus remover

2. Rest assured the scan report will list all items that may harm your operating system. Select the detected entries and click Fix Threats to get the troubleshooting completed.