Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 481ba4576aab966a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

53.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-21
MD5: 8b42d0f91b72067278208b3439f5927f SHA-1: 502c0f8f531d81a2f80dd671e25ae66094bd2dcc SHA-256: 481ba4576aab966a7e8b0259439fa8eb05258f5782cf1cbeaba06d4262c2d958
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 XLM macros contain an Auto_Open function that constructs and executes URLs to download a second-stage payload. The reconstructed URLs are: http://colordropsgu.com/7DORfidiAu/BquoSUn/, http://ewingconsulting.com/buy/Ewj7oYj7hYQ/, http://ceramiclafortaleza.com/css/5DSBCCH0/, and http://thuybaohuy.com/wp-content/VxhkYwH7/. This indicates a downloader functionality.

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-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0
  • 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
7ab5ef6689937532951c996fe211a2ac046a3dbc546728bfe725212729605929		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6790 bytes

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