Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a60eb458a78e163f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

145.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 664d24ce0d7913a22d11ce608ecbac44 SHA-1: 0d14939cc0d16d94268e343e494a5df1a3bfb088 SHA-256: a60eb458a78e163fc6b02d1857400f4f113f3c0161ca9fea28af3fa78a65ca9b
262 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 macro, which is a critical indicator of malicious intent. The macros reconstruct and utilize multiple URLs to download a second-stage payload. The ClamAV signature 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0' strongly suggests the Emotet family. The reconstructed URLs are: 'ht tps://t eam san de e p.c om/w p-c on ten t/p3 f2 n6w c4n wfg/', 'h ttp s://cs ino tici as.c om/w p-in clu des/R nH jI zg/', 'h tt p://la nd or est at es.c om/wo rdp re ss/N EL f96 wr/', 'h ttp s://w w w.ro ck w oo dsa loo n.c om/w p-a dm in/A7 06 GT XN uf QSW XG 52/', and 'h ttp://b ut zig e r.c om/m ee tti min g/hBJ CeN GA vBp GZo D7 ee /'. The macro also attempts to construct the string 'Dl lR egister Serve r' and references 'SysWow64\Windows\'.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (5 URLs) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0
  • 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.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://teamsandeep.com/wp-content/p3f2n6wc4nwfg/
    • https://csinoticias.com/wp-includes/RnHjIzg/
    • http://landorestates.com/wordpress/NELf96wr/
    • https://www.rockwoodsaloon.com/wp-admin/A706GTXNufQSWXG52/
    • http://butziger.com/meettiming/hBJCeNGAvBpGZoD7ee/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
71a011c6654bf0f86fe42dabbb7815a8e04c6ae15b5b70864945acbb6f82ced0		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6768 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.