A developer building a temperature monitor application discovered a hidden crypto miner on their using Claude Code. The AI tool identified the xmrig task consuming 1175% CPU across 12 cores, causing the system temperature to peak at 112 degrees .
Claude Code found the malware was added to the startup roster on August 29. The tool offered to stop the startup item, terminate the miner, and move files to quarantine. The developer tasked the AI with the cleanup, though one file required manual deletion.
This incident highlights the utility of AI coding agents in identifying system anomalies. Following the Claude Code intervention, a scan was performed to ensure the system was secure, confirming the removal of the resource-heavy mining software.