Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 67b4b2c7edb8e0f0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

74.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-20
MD5: eeb403fef0782353323eeface1761eb7 SHA-1: a3497242e80730519b2514be40f998d3dc3c8a00 SHA-256: 67b4b2c7edb8e0f0c0b7d8dd1466ce3ba24a2771be0aa1740e5548e824bc6353
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 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro that is known to be used for malicious purposes. The macro attempts to download a payload from multiple URLs, indicating a downloader functionality. ClamAV detection further confirms its malicious nature, identifying it as Emotet.

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
7ab5ef6689937532951c996fe211a2ac046a3dbc546728bfe725212729605929		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6790 bytes

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