Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4d5962ace9c2bd95…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

60.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-14
MD5: 692d08b5e05b7f81110813b49c6d1de9 SHA-1: e45b4ff9b808b69ce32663cef0a57a65bd4b369b SHA-256: 4d5962ace9c2bd95791ea49700d42b81cc72b59185e37c92fee2b7c588415674
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro that utilizes dangerous functions, specifically the RUN function, which is commonly used to execute downloaded payloads. The macro sheet contains concatenated strings that reconstruct URLs, likely serving as download locations for malicious content. ClamAV detection further confirms its malicious nature, identifying it as an Emotet downloader.

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-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0
  • 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