Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 81574070b47944ba…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

91.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-11-14
MD5: c3746ff14c90cef7b9f4478cebe79b79 SHA-1: de7ecf4c76f3753342f7fc0129b7ac32fb3c55c3 SHA-256: 81574070b47944ba4904a6e419a25eb1825a3a6cba5b8be896f0144e11802d31
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV identified the file as 'Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ca2435d8af069a3f-9977227-0', strongly suggesting it acts as a downloader for the Emotet banking trojan. The macro uses dangerous formula APIs, including RUN, to likely download and 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
075da5820505ad4942b29b4393c0f7e6513d8bf4988da6d9574c33fed1e04690		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8368 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.