wlanext.exe hogging CPU Resources

[UK Sentinel]

So for the last week my Laptop FAN has been on all the time, after some investigation I found via Task Manager that the wlanext.exe file was using 30 – 50% CPU resources and is associated with the Windows Wireless LAN 802.11 Extensibility Framework.

So looking online, seems to be either a file corruption or an Trojan Coin Miner (BitCoin Miner) that back in 2019 / 20 used the infected computer system’s sources to mine electronic currency without your consent.

The wlanext.exe was located in C:\Windows\wmu3\wlanext.exe and I found a second instance located C:\Windows\System32 which is where the original /official wlanext.exe should be located .

C:\Windows\System32 is the correct directory for wlanext.exe, C:\Windows\wmu3\wlanext.exe should not be there.

So I killed the wlanext.exe service in Task Manager and then deleted wlanext.exe from the C:\Windows\wmu3\ directory.

Now laptop is running smoothly and fan is working as it should be ?

I assume this is just a one off and do not hope the Trojan Coin Miner is making a comeback as it did in 2019 – 20 and interestingly, both my AVAST AV and MalwareBytes did not find anything unusual .

 

A good read on wlanext.exe  if you are interested:

Wlanext.exe Virus ⛏️ (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

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