Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 aae035c074dd1a0f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

141.0 KB Created: 2022-01-19 09:31:16 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 8bbf058c981973d55e14982c434c8116 SHA-1: 76a7fca0018f5fae85df2d5ad280d788e811953f SHA-256: aae035c074dd1a0f16ab7381887f6a9f8929c6b8f82d78d8b976bfa14151f8a9
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a critical indicator of malicious intent. ClamAV detection further confirms this, identifying it as 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0'. The presence of XLM macros strongly suggests the file is designed to download and execute a secondary payload, a common characteristic of Emotet. The document body, while appearing benign as a blood pressure tracker, serves as a lure.

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