Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 04e49f83ff80ef91…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

104.8 KB Created: 2022-01-26 14:19:06 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 8459b3557f89c8eab56bd30bfa183b4b SHA-1: 52b0c549aaf7f4e8eba8a37c09540aaf60d5755d SHA-256: 04e49f83ff80ef916d087e39c9964d4153d31591b2ff901f927aa751469bdd65
322 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

This Excel file contains Excel 4.0 macros that are configured to automatically execute upon opening. The macro uses the EXEC function to run a command that launches mshta.exe with a URL, indicating it's designed to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection and the presence of Emotet-related heuristics strongly suggest this is a downloader for the Emotet banking trojan.

Heuristics 8

  • 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-a5251d3d2d6d3722-9951020-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-a5251d3d2d6d3722-9951020-0
  • Reference to mshta.exe high SC_STR_MSHTA
    Reference to mshta.exe
  • LOLBin token sequence in document text high SE_LOLBIN_RUN_COMMAND
    Extracted document text contains a Windows script/execution tool name (PowerShell, mshta, cmd, rundll32, regsvr32, …) within 220 characters of a dangerous flag, command verb, or URL. This is a visible 'run this' instruction in HTML/PDF/RTF lure bodies, or — in macro-laden Office files — the macro's own string-pool entries appearing adjacent in extracted text.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • 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.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://91.240.118.168/qw/as/se.htmlB
    • http://91.240.118.168/qw/as/se.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
acc90a77140aefd9f66078ad9f3130ec8f2fc9f583ef0c3ddf100563adab96f4		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1037 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 1 shell/COM execution token(s). Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.

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