Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 65f6bf1299c82659…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

216.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-11-02
MD5: bf5319e9d582876aaaa4df46e74e74ee SHA-1: 99b2f1ba3cfd48f344fe0552ff4308b1877f7542 SHA-256: 65f6bf1299c82659d54482d0d08ed38dcdf61826f7df7fb68301620933e61e16
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Execution T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

The file is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV detection identifies it as an Emotet downloader. The macro uses dangerous formula APIs, including the RUN function, indicating it is designed 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-b649c93692b4c9d9-9976616-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b649c93692b4c9d9-9976616-0
  • 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
1c4ca3ac7a958ad30d20e2cbe71ce64d8944a312564cef26f4a1a0bcd74ec445		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8189 bytes

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