Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7ecf0d5b556f400f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

70.0 KB Created: 2022-01-20 19:00:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 56ef2bccaca7558aefe8f834c57fe2af SHA-1: 806d6227c68cebd4613926937d69eab04df22070 SHA-256: 7ecf0d5b556f400f2d98ef9f7e90373854ec0bda7732f5300223f9c600405235
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is identified as malicious by ClamAV with the signature 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9937164-0', indicating it's a downloader. Static analysis revealed the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an 'Auto_Open' entry, which is a common technique for executing malicious code upon opening the document. This strongly suggests the file is designed to deliver 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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