Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 6bda050432d6c741…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

101.0 KB Created: 2022-04-01 07:14:19 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-04-04
MD5: a640de31d88adc16df0bda4b4cbb2119 SHA-1: b2e99bbbcaeed064a894a9c878a16d141717f4b9 SHA-256: 6bda050432d6c74100e312b99ad70352385f079f5f9f7f26517d0c3282135ea2
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The macros construct and attempt to download a payload from multiple URLs, including 'http://dlfreight.com/wp-includes/zLuZdtVkoriGTaRE/', and save it as 'regsv r32.exe'. This behavior is consistent with Emotet's downloader functionality.

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-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-b2cbc93e36c0c13e-9950560-0
  • 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
66a420ef679e9f3d020a70001f9e809f7b557357f1c23d3c5d6bcd0b0973a144		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 7055 bytes

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