Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 59aaf7be492cbef4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

40.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-15
MD5: 75a98a0eeae25515f7f04996097ac0ba SHA-1: fd1d0f330dd1a4a571de334c4a0d611df59d8611 SHA-256: 59aaf7be492cbef408fc63ff51557f0fa929afe3e8b41cd6958d18ea4bdc9eba
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The critical heuristics OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN indicate the presence of an Excel 4.0 macro with an Auto_Open entry that calls dangerous functions. ClamAV detection further confirms this is Emotet. The macro likely executes a command to download and run a payload from one of the provided URLs, such as 'http://easiercommunications.com/wp-content/w/.exe'.

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-adc2d23d2dc26dd0-9950240-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-adc2d23d2dc26dd0-9950240-0
  • 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
3c680580d6c572fd20a0c9546b3c387c5635a8ba1be4180a74910d19615b1490		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6911 bytes

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