Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 6407591df6ce61f9…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

71.0 KB Created: 2022-01-20 19:00:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 21fc12ef8a4a4ba5b38a303fa7e70c08 SHA-1: 5700a2231371b289eae19ce62e1a73457ee582c4 SHA-256: 6407591df6ce61f946e24715faa6fba1b1f3221e2baf22f6c4f5a64f1ea98eb5
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 defined name, which is a critical indicator of malicious intent. ClamAV detection as 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9937164-0' strongly suggests this is an Emotet variant designed to download additional malware. The presence of XLM macros indicates a command and script interpreter is used to execute the initial 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.EmotetExcel01220-9937164-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9937164-0
  • 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
7f1f89a8b36a750dced08313a4e4f056192a6eac7194357c673dbbd2670a1a18		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 4219 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.