Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0e64b3663d58e19f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

106.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-03-30
MD5: bac762aa4f0823c6edaa48fe56593666 SHA-1: 0f0b9a4aabdf7e417aff5eaac17bc242bcaf5e2e SHA-256: 0e64b3663d58e19fc9594744e3329b127c00e7e9ca76d30ae0b89014a5502908
262 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros that are configured to auto-execute upon opening, as indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME heuristics. These macros utilize dangerous API functions and reconstruct multiple URLs from cell arrays, which are then likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection and the presence of multiple suspicious URLs strongly suggest this is a downloader for the Emotet family.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (6 URLs) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0
  • 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.
  • 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://dmcontabilidade.com/correspondentecaixa/TrS/
    • https://fcelik.nl/rittenregistratie/web/css/B3ILfU8Xk2SsEmT/
    • https://www.gessersh.com/wp-includes/ZwQLepW/
    • https://www.fantasticmotion.jp/_cnskin/qfWEQrrwBg/
    • http://fanfield.co.uk/cgi-bin/7pp6DjWFNJXY8/
    • http://www.garantihaliyikama.com/wp-admin/FjgB6I/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
feeff176628c881d9521dcd3ca882317ecc22390c60a180eb94dc7523ff8eda0		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6551 bytes

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