Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9ba82370475e40c8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

73.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-16
MD5: 9f39046798af9ff17e979e6667c44fe8 SHA-1: ecbaeea90ab58dc47e65eab6623e4014ddf11499 SHA-256: 9ba82370475e40c88f6fe9b06e81b4c17966c84d5db0bad66f47d0fecabdcfe7
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The macros construct a URL and a filename, 't.exe', to download a second-stage payload from the specified URLs. ClamAV detection confirms this is a downloader associated with the Emotet family. The reconstructed URL is 'http://anguianoss.com/wp-admin/BLMH9Q3bG/'.

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-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0
  • 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
9aad8521d90ca7f536d86e805137dbff97d82a2ac842ee968dd491451c1e0d83		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6831 bytes

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