Charmap.exe Virus (Coin Miner Trojan) Removal

Charmap.exe executable file comes from a harmful program that can correctly be identified as a coin miner virus. That malware type utilizes your hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, generally – Monero or DarkCoin1. It makes your system roughly nonfunctional as a result of high CPU usage.

What is Charmap.exe process?

Charmap.exe is a malicious process created by coin miner virus
Charmap.exe Windows Process

Charmap.exe – Really high CPU as well as GPU use

Besides CPU utilization, some of the coin miners additionally utilize GPU power for their tasks. In that case, you will probably struggle even to see the mouse cursor moving – GPU is usually utilized on 100%. It is not as essential as processor for system work, so Charmap.exe coin miner viruses don’t waste time on trifles and use it all. It often may result in unhappy effects.

Shortly about cryptocurrency mining

List of the typical coin miner symptoms

  • Extremely bad performance
  • CPU/GPU cooler fan creates a lot of noise
  • High temperature of the device (for laptops)
  • 80-90% consumption of CPU/GPU resources by an unknown process
  • Microsoft Defender is not working
  • How dangerous is the Charmap.exe miner?

    Coin miners does not deal damage to your files. However, they make a lot of unpleasant things with the whole system

    Initially, Charmap.exe virus makes your system overloaded. It is unable to run your applications now, because all CPU power is used by a malware. That malware does not care for your necessities, all it pays attention to is generating income on you. Even if you are patient, and you waited until browser is open, you will likely suffer from extremely sluggish efficiency. Pages will open up for years, any sort of logins will likely take about a minute – just a nightmare for a person who works online.

    Charmap.exe Technical Summary.

    File Name Charmap.exe
    Type Trojan Coin Miner
    Detection Name Trojan:Win32/CoinMiner
    Distribution Method Software bundling, Intrusive advertisement, redirects to shady sites etc.
    Similar behavior Dellsupportassistremedationservice.exe, 4.exe, Errorreport.exe
    Removal Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware for automatic Charmap.exe removal.

    “Visible” harm is not a single negative thing coin miners perform to your system. Charmap.exe coin miner likewise deals damage to your OS. To carry out all malevolent operations properly, it ruins the protection mechanisms of your system. You will likely see your Microsoft Defender disabled – malware stops it to prevent detection. If you check the HOSTS file, you will likely see a ton of new notes – they are brought in by this trojan miner to connect your PC to a malicious mining network. All these changes shall be gone back to the original in the process of computer recovery.

    Hardware effects of coin miner activity

    Besides making your computer slow, running at peak level for long times can trigger damage to your device and raise electricity bills. Hardware components are created to easily get along with high load, but they can do so only when they are in a good shape.

    Little and covered CPU cooling system is not very easy to broke. Meanwhile, GPUs have big and easy-to-access rotors, which can be easily cracked if affected while running, for example, by the user much earlier before the malware injection. Malfunctioning cooling system, together with the unusually high load caused by Charmap.exe virus can easily lead to graphic card failure3. Video cards are also tend to have increased wearing when utilized for crypto mining. It is surely a bad case when your GPU’s performance decreases on 20-30% just after 1-2 weeks of being exploited in such a way.

    How did I get Charmap.exe coin miner virus?

    Coin miners are spread through different ways, but their main sources are malicious banners and programs from dubious sources
    Unwanted banners adware

    The example of malicious banners you can see in the Internet

    One more way you could get this item on your PC is by downloading it from the unreliable website as a part of a program. People who spread hacked variants of popular programs (which do not require the license key) have small chances to earn money. For this reason, there is a huge temptation to include malware to the final package of the hacked application and receive a coin for every installation. Prior to blaming these guys for hacking and also malware spreading, ask yourself – is it OK to avoid buying the program in this manner? It is more affordable to pay $20-$30 at once than to pay a much bigger sum for antivirus software as well as new parts for your desktop.

    How to remove the Charmap.exe miner from my PC?

    The best way to get rid of this coin miner virus is to use anti-malware software

    Booting the PC into Safe Mode with Networking

    Press the Start button, then choose Power, and click on Reboot while holding the Shift key on the keyboard.

    Boot into Windows Safe Mode

    Windows will reboot into recovery mode. In that mode, choose Troubleshoot→ Startup Settings→ Safe Mode with Networking. Press the corresponding button on your keyboard to choose that option.

    windows safe mode boot option with command prompt

    When your PC is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps, just like the majority of non-critical system components, are not started with the system start. That gives you the ability to clean the PC without dealing with high CPU usage of the coin miner.

    References

    1. Read about why Monero and DarkCoin are so popular amongst cybercriminals.
    2. About unwanted effects for GPUs in the process of cryptomining.

    Spanish Turkish

    About the author

    Robert Bailey

    Security engineer focused on malware behavior, removal workflows, and Windows hardening. Robert reviews threat articles for practical accuracy, checking detection names, symptoms, and cleanup steps before publication.

    Leave a Comment