Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 204444ba9e50f168…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

95.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-13
MD5: 9726e28b437cb66ca162c31322ce8aae SHA-1: e3b61df3adb852daa77bda6b3de90b21ff81903b SHA-256: 204444ba9e50f16873a7da65ef2ec28e5aeea4440fceb9670262cf955a0fa191
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Execution T1059.001 PowerShell: PowerShell

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open function, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. ClamAV detection explicitly identifies it as an Emotet downloader. The XLM macro uses dangerous formula APIs, including RUN, indicating it is designed to execute arbitrary commands.

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
85773188e79d904ef8ecf815a27f3a8200cc87e1822ab4901cc9bed29c53e636		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8156 bytes

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