Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0908bdb00632ed56…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

95.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-06
MD5: 2a101dbc88425909d3fe09c48a7b14d4 SHA-1: 1257b776c3d9971dd0032f90ce14ecc0abf87506 SHA-256: 0908bdb00632ed56a00fc5d10892568eef7040cd5a51c22ef407785fed9812d1
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-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0'. Static analysis revealed Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, including an Auto_Open defined name that utilizes dangerous formula APIs like RUN. This indicates the macro is intended to execute a secondary payload, consistent with downloader functionality.

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
5a8c99bdeb48d9fb4841ec9204e2c9ef708c0c70e96bb807734173952fc7fd55		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8133 bytes

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