Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 72d0910dcfdffbd8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

76.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-24
MD5: 7fcc5cf991155afb2f10a5479140bb17 SHA-1: 21cba9fefffb2a73f1a9d5edf71d415ecd29c015 SHA-256: 72d0910dcfdffbd8e0e3da0f443e4f698c0c6cb398608b44ea43f10d6cb52c45
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is identified as malicious by ClamAV with the signature Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0. Static analysis revealed the presence of Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, including an Auto_Open entry that utilizes dangerous functions like RUN. This strongly suggests the macro is designed to download and execute a secondary payload, a common characteristic of Emotet droppers.

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-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0
  • 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
699262561ec3d99048995190519e1ec0d2c1b6cd8b25d23fcdee6ae2a4df2472		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 7861 bytes

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