Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3683534c4b670a3e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

83.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-28
MD5: 637cd656e097dd6c37b766a9f77f0c2b SHA-1: 35c323f23ee0098dce417562862b2e3e5518e7ca SHA-256: 3683534c4b670a3ea8b4748ee01fa9f5859b3288db05049da76a0f02971b754a
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is identified as malicious by ClamAV with the signature Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0. Static analysis revealed the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function that utilizes dangerous API calls like RUN. This indicates the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands, a common technique for downloading and running further malicious stages.

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
5256f8d02b5455a690e7e52d7503a743c939c4c0d6be0d7d0ac816b796f21179
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8057 bytes