Novpopen.exe Cryptomining Malware Abuses System Hardware

Novpopen.exe is the name of a malicious tool used by bad actors to mine cryptocurrency while abusing a victim system's hardware.

Cryptominers are a subcategory of malware that attempts to keep a low profile on an infected system for as long as possible while mining cryptocurrency and profiting the malware's author.

Just like almost every other cryptominer malware, Novpopen.exe will start exerting great strain on the system's hardware. Mining cryptocurrency requires complex calculations and you need a lot of CPU and GPU cycles to do this.

Cryptominer malware infects a victim system, then loads its CPU or GPU to a near-maximum and uses that processing power to make money for the hacker operating the malware.

A sure sign of having a cryptominer on your system is a laggy computer, window animations being choppy and the system being generally very slow to respond to simple tasks and commands. If you examine your Task Manager, you will notice that the Novpopen.exe process is taking up almost all of your CPU cycles, causing the system to lag.

Removing cryptominer malicious apps will often require the use of a dedicated anti-malware solution.