Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 68ac40fe87dde757…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

70.9 KB Created: 2022-01-20 19:00:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: a14c0952a5e05df30aa6a94b99b6bfc6 SHA-1: af2ea35fc446f2f9450a480499362d2c91ded92a SHA-256: 68ac40fe87dde757e87dd5e24f31fa32b8936e445748bf112e3b2bfd8e50c713
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains critical heuristics indicating the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a common execution vector for older Excel versions. ClamAV detection further confirms its malicious nature, identifying it as an Emotet downloader. The presence of XLM macros suggests an attempt to execute arbitrary code upon opening, likely to download and run a secondary 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

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