Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 360cf9e5ef0a5fd4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

70.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-04-22
MD5: 8f6fba3aca83dd4f971380855c83f281 SHA-1: 6b16504ab2a74b21e9909575191db4964941053a SHA-256: 360cf9e5ef0a5fd454dd48fbb70fbbfff60a1654d8e3f878cedb472e8ab7c514
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet detected as Emotet by ClamAV. The critical heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions, specifically the RUN function. This macro is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the listed URLs, which is a common Emotet delivery technique.

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-b3c5cc3b13c03bcc-9950246-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b3c5cc3b13c03bcc-9950246-0
  • 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
30ada183749f97ebaf18ae6bd28860c0d00794baffcbe6164f1acabbc23f484b		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6769 bytes

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