Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 61617195e6ac7097…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

55.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-23
MD5: dbaa6d60d6723d0572b7037e23e624ee SHA-1: acdb12494f4aa1fbaddddfc68ec024e205005c9d SHA-256: 61617195e6ac7097101f36ad2ffa54d64ba1876fb9c55f7d218157cb77fd9a67
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample was detected as Emotet by ClamAV and contains Excel 4.0 macros. Specifically, it has an Auto_Open defined name that uses dangerous formula APIs, including the RUN function, indicating it's designed to execute code. The macro attempts to construct a URL by concatenating strings, resulting in 'http://dm.admin/cb/', which is likely used to download and execute a secondary payload.

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
0fa7b9c4567fb532a84042c1771f5eac4efa88462da7bd6f927c640913891bc9		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8047 bytes

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