Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7d34bfd86fba8992…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

91.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-11-10
MD5: a1b2ed3804ab403210ed778365e46cc9 SHA-1: b83a0866866dc3748e8bc0950527803284b8682c SHA-256: 7d34bfd86fba89924215e960a2a68ca3de2e2ccdfb2a6e418517566dde151c15
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Execution T1059.001 PowerShell: PowerShell T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV identified this file as Emotet, a downloader family. The presence of the Auto_Open function and the ClamAV signature strongly indicate a malicious downloader designed to execute a second-stage payload.

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-ca2435d8af069a3f-9977227-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ca2435d8af069a3f-9977227-0
  • 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
dc57fe9f0ca8f0cbc57e306f5a9d31d676229736676cd8a3b4ec216d60e8b21c		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8369 bytes

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