CHECKMATE Virus 🔐 (.CHECKMATE Files) — How to Remove?

Safety specialist Tomas Meskauskas was the first to identify the Checkmate virus, which falls into the category of ransomware infections. This type of ransomware encrypts all user data on QNAP devices, including images, documents, excel sheets, music, videos, and more. It appends its own extension to each file and leaves !CHECKMATE_DECRYPTION_README.txt files in every directory that contains the encrypted files.

What is Checkmate virus?

☝️ A scientifically correct denomination for the Checkmate would be “a ransomware malicious agent”.

Checkmate ransomware will add its own .checkmate extension to the title of every file. For example, an image named “photo.jpg” will be renamed to “photo.jpg.checkmate”. Similarly, an Excel sheet named “table.xlsx” will be changed to “table.xlsx.checkmate”, and so on.

Within each folder that contains the encrypted files, you will find a !CHECKMATE_DECRYPTION_README.txt text file. This file serves as a ransom note and provides instructions on how to contact the perpetrators and make the ransom payment. It typically includes details on purchasing the decryption tool from the attackers. To initiate contact, you can reach out to checkmate_team (Telegram) via email. That is the general information provided in the ransom note.

Checkmate abstract:

The !CHECKMATE_DECRYPTION_README.txt file accompanying the Checkmate ransomware provides the following frustrating information:

You was hacked by CHECKMATE team.
All your data has been encrypted, backups have been deleted.
Your unique ID: -
You can restore the data by paying us money.
We have encrypted - office files.
We determine the amount of the ransom from the number of encrypted office files.
The cost of decryption is 15000 USD.
Payment is made to a unique bitcoin wallet.
Before paying, you will be able to make sure that we can actually decrypt your files.
For this:
1) Download and install Telegram Messenger hxxps://telegram.org/
2) Find us hxxps://t.me/checkmate_team
3) Send a message with your unique ID and 3 files for test decryption. Files should be no more than 15mb each.
4) In response, we will send the decrypted files and a bitcoin wallet for payment. Bitcoin wallet is unique for you, so we can find out what you paid.
5) After the payment is received, we will send you the key and the decryption program.

In the screenshot below, you can see what a folder with files encrypted by the Checkmate looks like. Each filename has the “.checkmate” extension added to it.

How did my machine catch Checkmate ransomware?

There are many possible ways of ransomware infiltration.

Nowadays, there are three most popular methods for evil-doers to have ransomware settled in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan introduction and peer-to-peer networks.

If you access your mailbox and see emails that look just like notifications from utility services companies, postal agencies like FedEx, web-access providers, and whatnot, but whose sender is strange to you, be wary of opening those emails. They are very likely to have a malware file attached to them. Thus it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with letters like these.

As for the peer networks like torrent trackers or eMule, the danger is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet. You can never know what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy resources. Also, it is a good idea to scan the folder containing the downloaded items with the antivirus as soon as the downloading is done.

How to remove the Checkmate virus?

It is crucial to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Checkmate virus will probably install the Spyware on your QNAP to get access to credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That spyware² can derive your logins and passwords from your browser’s auto-filling data.

Sometimes racketeers would unblock some of your files so you know that they indeed have the decryption tool. As Checkmate virus is a relatively recent ransomware, safety measures engineers have not yet found a way to undo its work. Nevertheless, the decoding instruments are frequently upgraded, so the effective countermeasure may soon be available.

Understandably, if the tamperers succeed in encoding someone’s critical data, the desperate person will probably comply with their demands. Nevertheless, paying a ransom gives no guarantee that you’re getting your blocked information back. It is still risky. After receiving the money, the racketeers may send a wrong decryption code to the injured party. There were reports about criminals simply vanishing after getting the money without even bothering to reply.

The best solution against ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your essential files in the cloud drive or at least on an external disk. Obviously, that might be insufficient. Your most important thing could be that file you were working upon when it all started. But at least it is something. It is also wise to scan your drives with the anti-malware utility after the OS restoration.

There are other ransomware products, besides Checkmate, that work similarly. For instance, Goaq, Coaq, Qotr, and some others. The two major differences between them and the Checkmate are the ransom amount and the method of encryption. The rest is almost identical: files become encoded, their extensions changed, ransom notes are found in every folder containing encrypted files.

Some fortunate victims were able to decrypt the blocked files with the help of the free software provided by anti-ransomware developers. Sometimes the criminals mistakenly send the decryption key to the wronged in the ransom note. Such an extraordinary fail allows the injured part to restore the files. But of course, one should never expect such a chance. Make no mistake, ransomware is a criminals’ tool to lay their hands on the money of their victims.

How сan I avert ransomware infection?

Checkmate ransomware doesn’t have a superpower, so as any similar malware.

You can armour yourself from ransomware injection in several easy steps:

• Ignore any letters from unknown mailers with unknown addresses, or with content that has likely no connection to something you are waiting for (can you win in a money prize draw without even taking part in it?). In case the email subject is likely something you are expecting, scrutinize all elements of the dubious email with caution. A fake email will surely contain mistakes.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted programs. Trojans are often spreaded as an element of cracked products, most likely under the guise of “patch” to prevent the license check. But potentially dangerous programs are very hard to distinguish from reliable ones, because trojans sometimes have the functionality you seek. You can try to find information on this program on the anti-malware forums, but the best way is not to use such software.

Reasons why I would recommend GridinSoft³

Download Removal Tool.

Run the setup file.

Press “Install” button.

Once installed, Anti-Malware will automatically run.

Wait for the Anti-Malware scan to complete.

Click on “Clean Now”.

FAQ

🤔 How can I open “.checkmate” files?Can I somehow access “.checkmate” files?

Negative. That is why ransomware is so frustrating. Until you decode the “.checkmate” files you will not be able to access them.

🤔 I really need to decrypt those “.checkmate” files ASAP. How can I do that?

Hopefully, you have made a copy of those important files. If not, there is still a function of System Restore but it needs a Restore Point to be previously saved. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time.

🤔 What to do if the Checkmate virus has blocked my QNAP and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What could help the situation right now?

Many of the blocked files might still be within your reach

• If you sent or received your important files through email, you could still download them from your online mail server.
• You might have shared photographs or videos with your friends or family members. Just ask them to post those images back to you.
• If you have initially downloaded any of your files from the Internet, you can try doing it again.
• Your messengers, social networks pages, and cloud disks might have all those files too.
• Maybe you still have the needed files on your old QNAP, a notebook, phone, external storage, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can use data recovery utilities⁵ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encodes the copies of your files, deleting the original ones. In the video below, you can learn how to use PhotoRec for such a recovery, but be advised: you won’t be able to do it before you remove the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

Also, you can contact the following governmental fraud and scam sites to report this attack:

• In the United States: On Guard Online;
• In Canada: Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre;
• In the United Kingdom: Action Fraud;
• In Australia: SCAMwatch;
• In New Zealand: Consumer Affairs Scams;
• In France: Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information;
• In Germany: Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik;
• In Ireland: An Garda Síochána;

To report the attack, you can contact local executive boards. For instance, if you live in USA, you can have a talk with FBI Local field office, IC3 or Secret Service.

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