Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9210c4df14d30bbc…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

129.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 238ea2e0f1e922df2191d3a4ec6cafd2 SHA-1: 04b7a8eb13dc55259826d51a2c7523dd85004b51 SHA-256: 9210c4df14d30bbc7a7184c7fe7860d32b44eaf2fbd5825f6f29c930b29231a7
280 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1204.002 Malicious File

This malicious Excel document utilizes a Workbook_Open macro to execute a Windows Script Host (Wscript.Shell) object. The script reconstructs and runs the command 'cuerlxmuerlxc suerlxtauerlxruerlxt uerlx/uerlxB uerlxc:uerlx\wuerlxinuerlxdowuerlxs\suerlxyswuerlxouerlxw6uerlx4\ruuerlxnduerlxluerlxl3uerlx2.uerlxexuerlxe uerlxc:uerlx\uerlxpruerlxoguerlxramuerlxdauerlxta\bneuihlows.duerlxluerlxl', which appears to be an obfuscated command to download and execute a VBScript payload from a remote URL. The presence of Emotet-related heuristics and the specific download/execution pattern strongly suggest the Emotet family.

Heuristics 7

  • 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.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • 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
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.