Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2b44725408afe929…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

56.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-03-28
MD5: b184d6529e2ef5047d8fccf4d9fa68f7 SHA-1: a6262f7ae507e592b30f11372e251cb39481eb1f SHA-256: 2b44725408afe929787105ae990cd10c0b8ab6b3d88bb45824b6f0d7689f209f
262 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Execution T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious Link

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that utilizes an Auto_Open macro. The macro reconstructs and executes URLs to download a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection and the nature of the embedded URLs strongly suggest Emotet. The reconstructed URL strings and the use of regsvr32.exe are key indicators of this malicious activity.

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: Doc.Downloader.Emotet03220-9942564-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.Emotet03220-9942564-0
  • 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://church.ktc-center.net/PbSkdCOW/
    • https://chobemaster.com/components/gus/
    • https://christianchapman.com/cgi-bin/gADHL9UXSFUTN/
    • http://chmiola.net/audio/6OuzyjPS/
    • http://clanfog.co.uk/_vti_bin/aObJD8vpKaJRLKgoX6i/
    • https://cipes.gob.mx/css/A046XJg/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
5834970f734bf661b309120f05c0862d1e7420175d65222097e2d0e18d98d2e0		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6614 bytes

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