Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4bcfa10a605aa27a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

63.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-15
MD5: 3412d967b3ebac85718074118fa94bb3 SHA-1: 8397935ac4c88004ae887e8a20cd0c55523340b1 SHA-256: 4bcfa10a605aa27a638cd8508c88e8eec338b36068a6fcb21113130310c61d06
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 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, as indicated by multiple critical heuristics. The macro uses string concatenation to construct URLs, which are then likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection explicitly names this as an Emotet downloader. The reconstructed URLs are: http://cedeco.es/js/n74fS/, http://balticontrolbd.com/cgi-bin/Gu0xn0kIsGsGJF8/, https://fiktibem.gunadarma.ac.id/SDM/qNeMUe2RvxdvuRl/f/, and https://www.careofu.com/PHPExcels/sQ78BedriN JZ bGYj/.

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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