Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3dfad5f1d33acb1c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

63.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-15
MD5: fb4c5da269ad18815c87b8a28cd3eabe SHA-1: bb532fa4583a1b20257708a5de6999c0e4697f3c SHA-256: 3dfad5f1d33acb1c73823d1d2d238a95862c11db34692984ac7b63a7c2c0fd7d
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 workbook detected as Emotet by ClamAV. The Auto_Open macro uses the RUN function to execute a downloaded payload. The macro constructs several URLs by concatenating strings, which are likely used to fetch the next stage of the infection. The reconstructed URLs are: http://cedeco.es/js/n74fS/, http://balticontrolbd.com/cgi-bin/Gu0xn0kIsGsJF8/, https://fikti.bem.gunadarma.ac.id/SDM/qNeMUe2RvxduRl/f/, and https://www.careofu.com/PHPExcels/sQ78BedriN JZ bG Yj/.

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
81a890043a2bf9bada66e5f829f683706b013cf3d1f82e11ea536e934629d60f		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8316 bytes

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