Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5ca0d333916a1482…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

142.7 KB Created: 2022-01-19 09:31:16 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7c7b196f115448bf4bfa36e7b7817e1d SHA-1: 1d42ff636756c7b8ebf8a844d39b04d85556d9b3 SHA-256: 5ca0d333916a14824f0434d5c88430e1f929f2ada4da94f2b1aa4deaa262d132
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. ClamAV detection confirms this, identifying it as Emotet. The document body is a plausible lure for a blood pressure tracker, designed to mask the macro execution. The primary attack vector is likely spearphishing attachment, with the XLM macro serving to download and execute a secondary payload.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0
  • 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
592af8991900f2f7058dc7ea90a33320ae293c7e541db4222a7b7f9c04f59d96		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8469 bytes

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