Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 1a0716836a050af0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

73.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-16
MD5: d2f7912c011a73f1f106bca358b960bb SHA-1: 4248e114260dfdc02dc069a64519f14511505f27 SHA-256: 1a0716836a050af04f005a9953c13d9d0931b99b8c4b472a0fe8d284ab8dd93e
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is identified as malicious by ClamAV with the signature Xls.Downloader.Emotet. The presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro utilizing the RUN API, strongly indicates a downloader. The macro reconstructs a URL and a path to save an executable, suggesting it downloads and executes a second-stage payload. The reconstructed URL is "http://hulsit.com/0a61/nm6lxocqt/".

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-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0
  • 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
9aad8521d90ca7f536d86e805137dbff97d82a2ac842ee968dd491451c1e0d83		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6831 bytes

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