Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9ba56efec9dfbeac…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

141.3 KB Created: 2022-01-19 09:31:16 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 5acca79d4dcd5f379785ab24580f0d79 SHA-1: 7a3e94b22a89cfd81a745ba01955b1eeae9be0bb SHA-256: 9ba56efec9dfbeaca7216f658c75a50962169d958ce15e168479e490539e84dc
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.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0. Critical heuristics indicate the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a common execution vector for Emotet. The macro sheet contains an Auto_Open entry, suggesting it is designed to run automatically when the workbook is opened. The document body content appears to be a lure for tracking blood pressure data, which is a common social engineering tactic.

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.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0
  • 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
592af8991900f2f7058dc7ea90a33320ae293c7e541db4222a7b7f9c04f59d96
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8469 bytes