Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 649143ea8e6ec117…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

70.0 KB Created: 2022-01-20 19:00:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 8510ad982100d93f2f2e73f6efa6f1de SHA-1: 08f057ed15c17ce3abdb3c51aa48edbb27adeaa3 SHA-256: 649143ea8e6ec1173106ac1bc3034951327ffc75a1d8324a1b80d280998e2fa2
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a common technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV detection confirms this is a known Emotet downloader variant. The presence of XLM macros indicates an attempt to execute arbitrary code when the document is opened, likely as part of a phishing campaign.

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.