Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3ee844f5c2a7fadf…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

145.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7e4ab2ac346a5761a554b334bf85ed65 SHA-1: c90477343f6345422b009229c692719d25bfa61b SHA-256: 3ee844f5c2a7fadf754fc4739d15a45cf537eea5e82ccddc64ea0a7970e5c154
262 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. The macros are designed to reconstruct and download payloads from a list of five embedded URLs. The ClamAV detection name 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0' strongly suggests the Emotet family. The reconstructed URL 'http://127.0.0.1/old/V6BBS9ai/' and similar variants are indicative of a downloader attempting to fetch further malicious content.

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 (5 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.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0
  • 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 https://torostripinginc.com/old/V6BBS9ai/
    • https://geologyadventures.com/error/vEsebODbHUw/
    • https://dev.woodiewin.com/wp-admin/Humbse55L82p72PIbbA/
    • https://xxden.online/wp-content/ge6YV52pidqe/
    • https://firebirdtaclub.com/_borders/TMFaFAVVxivebh/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
1574ee13450fd34682012e2ebea7c020d326605272204fb688e7873d4a7c8165		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6756 bytes

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