Claude Mac Temperature App Uncovers Cryptominer 12 Cpu Cores 112c

A Mac belonging to the vibecoder was hitting temperatures of 112°C, hitting the thermal throttling limit, and causing the machine to perform sluggishly. It took the use of Claude developing a temperature monitoring app for macOS to realize that there was a cryptominer running on the Mac this entire time, stealing all of the computing resources.

XMRig was found to be the cryptominer running on the Mac, as it’s famously bundled with malware to consume a system’s resources

To see if the temperature monitoring app was working correctly, Redditor “u/UntilHEX” asked the AI to run some accuracy tests, after which Claude’s response made the user realize there was a cryptominer running on the Mac this time. There’s no mention of which specific model was running the AI, but 12 CPU cores deliver sufficient compute performance for a Mac.

The newly launched M6 features 12 CPU cores, as does the M4 Pro, M3 Pro, and M2 Max. Whatever chipset was running, it was being stressed hard by XMRig, because it made the entire Mac slow and likely frustrating to use, not to mention that the temperatures were reaching a toasty 112°C. Apple Silicon might have a higher tolerance for reaching scorching thermals, as indicated by the M5 Max running in the 16-inch MacBook Pro crossing the 100°C threshold when pushed hard .

XMRig apparently ran from a temporary folder and was mining to a pool called pool.hashvault.sh. The interesting bit these findings is that a startup item called “LaunchAgent” kept the program running through a large encoded script. This meant that it would restart if the process was killed, making it quite an intricate approach. On Windows, we’ve encountered a similar problem, as the cryptominer would disappear after we opened Task Manager.

It was only after we fired up RivaTuner Statistics Server via MSI Afterburner in a game that we learned that our CPU usage was unnecessarily high, leading us to conclude that a cryptominer was running in the system. XMRig is a well-known open-source Monero miner, and it’s commonly bundled with malware that hijacks other people’s computers. As secure as a Mac is, it’s not immune to keeping these nefarious programs away.

Firing up Claude for a different purpose certainly helped the vibecoder, but this isn’t the first time that the AI has been helpful. We’ve previously reported that the chatbot helped a user narrow down random BSODs to faulty RAM and also helped the customer with the RMA process. Claude has also helped design a quadruped robot with 99 moving parts and write the firmware from scratch, revealing that the AI has way more uses than discovering cryptominers running on unsuspecting users.

the author : Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.

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