taskhost.exe high usage

Orcvader · 12 Aug 2013 at 23:10

So I noticed while playing StarCraft 2 with Skype, my CPU usage was at 100%, which was really abnormal. I checked Task Manager and noticed it was taskhost.exe hogging it all up. But the exe file was in the roaming folder, so I used Process Manager and saw it was connected to a "ypool.net", which Google showed was linked to CPU bitcoin mining. I scanned and deleted it, as well as the startup entry and it seems to be fine now. But I have no idea how I was infected! Apparantly it was created on the 08/08/13, with the taskhost.dll only created today (and started the whole high CPU usage). The only thing I've been doing is SC2 + Skype, so I have no idea how I was infected :confused:

. Can you get infected via one of these two programs?

EDIT: And two friends I play with also got infected as well... how odd...

KIA · 13 Aug 2013 at 15:33

Out of date software..
You could have been socially engineered into running a malicious program

Do you have Java installed?

Orcvader · 13 Aug 2013 at 17:12

Yes, the 64 bit version just for Minecraft (and doesn't appear as a plugin within Firefox/Chrome). I still am quite confused how me and my friends got infected and seeing the high CPU usage at the same time. Everything is up to date as far as I'm aware. I haven't installed or ran new programs as well, so I have no idea how it suddenly was there.

KIA · 13 Aug 2013 at 18:36

Secunia PSI will help.

On Holiday · 13 Aug 2013 at 18:38

Incredible how many BTC miners are actually getting in without anti-virus/internet security picking it up. Makes you wonder if somebody can get a miner on your PC what else have they put on/can they get on.

Cana · 7 Sep 2013 at 09:23

I had the same problem on August 15. In my case I sent an email to "ypool.net" with the url of the person who was using my computer.

I hope they can do something about it, and yes, I received response.