Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 6565c2959a8e637f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

80.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-15
MD5: b9dd7ece6cbb17424ec8c947cacb5b16 SHA-1: 6efeebf472ec5e94764eb70fcab8a098cdab87ed SHA-256: 6565c2959a8e637f2b0f8463eae7e6e453e830ce1761654aafc757c19e5f0fcb
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, specifically with an Auto_Open defined name, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The macros are designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the listed URLs. ClamAV also detected this file as 'Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0', strongly suggesting the Emotet family.

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-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0
  • 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
2fdf21f2db447f9be93416b81af1c740576c18d6efe5c8c6f3d215a65c941f1d		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6790 bytes

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