Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 189b5fe4129208b3…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

96.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-13
MD5: 8372f055cbcd6c7b75e8bd0fa128cc49 SHA-1: 753dd09a71ddfa21e1ec377a391687c6dd08ad7d SHA-256: 189b5fe4129208b306a337565a45f9d037108a4b91fc75957759fef441edc9d3
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function that utilizes dangerous API calls. ClamAV identifies this as Emotet, a known downloader family. The Auto_Open macro is designed to execute a secondary payload, likely for further infection.

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
bae78e0fbdd64b8eec8c06df7d5d04bcbe08bac4f096bf4874c086635223fd8c		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8141 bytes

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