Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 456a97c8a008d357…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

101.5 KB Created: 2022-04-01 07:14:19 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-04-04
MD5: 8d06ced832dd429dea43add959f3f25c SHA-1: 7d505cdd295a6c5e4bc14b407a25d56b6549880a SHA-256: 456a97c8a008d357a2dc6eb7dec44227c90461e6750056f49bc3b07e7b333377
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that leverages the Auto_Open function to execute a payload. The macro constructs and executes the command 'regsvr32.exe' with a URL to download and run a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection and heuristic firings strongly indicate this is an Emotet downloader variant.

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-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0
  • 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
8a188f103ec2ad9c430bbffc369798c3a872a3049e785c27c270542470084682		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 7321 bytes

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