Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 af64d169c79c3439…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

77.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-28
MD5: 07ca37d9e99e90bf55e7385fe44b5e6d SHA-1: 3007a4d88ace54d6f5286ebcfebb55d1d1315ef2 SHA-256: af64d169c79c34397382c4a2ec4d8a7db3caa07b2ab3ba40c1c9b1bfb438b46a
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open function, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV detection specifically identifies it as an Emotet downloader. The macro sheet contains dangerous formula APIs, including RUN, indicating it is designed to execute arbitrary commands.

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
ba8d7fa2d1247015e9a8499ae525e8723aa678f278257c1a4b7bf5a5d8f0dbba		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8044 bytes

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