Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 01c9617d2133ff70…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

56.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-23
MD5: e37e6c89ebafbec2e17086283dc1180b SHA-1: d7c4ac73d2a1855b9ea7d627946dd60e016fa358 SHA-256: 01c9617d2133ff705605d8dd0100dcf190eb75827573f5965a72712aa1f684e9
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The file is an Excel XLS document containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry that uses dangerous functions like RUN. ClamAV identifies this as Xls.Downloader.Emotet. The macro script attempts to construct a URL by concatenating strings: "g"&"sd"&"c.p"&"l/s"&"mi"&"ec"&"io/1"&"9V"&"Yf"&"hH"&"Lp/", which resolves to http://gscdc.pl/smecio/19VYfhHLp/. This URL is likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0
  • 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
919a6b48cc68925b8e5d66f9514d1ef67568988e991528c883e8e2350c0717f5		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8134 bytes

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