Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9bc74075f7f482e4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

94.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-30
MD5: 94db48e7998540a932a0698c1f9d8325 SHA-1: e7fd09159aaf8ea2357de4daca3ce482ca9b2adc SHA-256: 9bc74075f7f482e4166f2cde5213948915b9d9f7885e49ab434c9c036486ba56
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is identified as malicious by ClamAV and exhibits critical heuristic firings for Excel 4.0 macros, including an Auto_Open function that utilizes dangerous formula APIs like RUN. This indicates the macro is designed to execute arbitrary code, likely downloading and executing a secondary payload, consistent with Emotet's behavior.

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-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0
  • 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
8fecd04da9f2ef951c1cf418bb1cb77e5a112fcf7d422154fd31e99e03176a3b		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8132 bytes

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