Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 00fa310f4c6cb2da…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

80.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-16
MD5: b16d74071cb8038a76806f9313403ac5 SHA-1: 957ec18316a33c9f92e0e12200dc0142512df77c SHA-256: 00fa310f4c6cb2da065c12f475ed7aee56856cfb0672b59469b00bb3dd3c715b
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled workbook detected as Emotet by ClamAV. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses concatenated strings to form URLs, which are likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload. The specific URLs identified are http://byrndest3.com/cgi-bin/TEq/bin/, http://carbonbros.co.za/logs/KSTJNdxZ73hIZPKddEDT/, http://www.bubblefootballeurope.de/wp-admin/3aMnYP/, and http://casov.com/proxy/kk0OWcstqPOOyeG/.

Heuristics 4

  • Excel 4.0 Auto_Open defined name critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME
    oletools recovered an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry from an Excel 4.0 macro sheet. The raw BIFF name can be tokenized or partially opaque to byte-string checks, but the recovered macro listing confirms the workbook has an XLM auto-execution entry.
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs critical OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry and dangerous XLM formula APIs that can invoke programs, write files, or transfer control without VBA.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0
  • Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet present medium OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN
    Workbook contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet sub-stream — XLM is rarely seen in modern legitimate workbooks and was a major Office malware vector during 2020-2022.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
2fdf21f2db447f9be93416b81af1c740576c18d6efe5c8c6f3d215a65c941f1d
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6790 bytes