Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 98ee2a56be45f948…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

55.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-22
MD5: afd91b2914a7c0c3eb5ccc2efa6243aa SHA-1: 454eb93860b41712c155b112163a3d276640d094 SHA-256: 98ee2a56be45f94877ddf5a5f703136c440abf3b83926062d449f992838d83b0
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV identified this as Emotet. The macro uses the RUN function, indicating it's designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from the reconstructed URL "http://inninng/NgmBH48GCzovEIAgJ/Y/".

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-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0
  • 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
849f3718ec0fd3673746b761d078b5d6767e9cb8cc0df7772d50cc7c5a2548d8		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8080 bytes

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