Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 078dd0cb7a5ab4d2…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

94.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-04
MD5: 68d054915eac9e878c8ead3599205380 SHA-1: d5f64d215dc8bf4d57287ebedad4fbae05a7342d SHA-256: 078dd0cb7a5ab4d228094321a828d71aa7e111117d054aa00a5c32ddc2667c5a
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is identified as malicious by ClamAV with the signature Xls.Downloader.Emotet. Static analysis revealed the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry that utilizes dangerous functions. This indicates the macro is designed to execute automatically and likely download a second-stage payload, consistent with Emotet downloader behavior.

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
284f2836f30d4f529f3f67110b3bfb73d5b26e67c353e36fa87f86510408efa8		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8144 bytes

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