Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 b0c52fae66a3490b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

264.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-18
MD5: 0591c224535324764081eb46a7f64ddf SHA-1: 968a0a2e24c32e52e7a0fb2942a95a6a742c77ae SHA-256: b0c52fae66a3490bd28cb077420e45ee50214ffcf7a00b3ca332d6f363d3bf4e
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for Emotet. The macro is designed to execute dangerous functions, specifically the RUN function, indicating it's intended to download and execute a secondary payload. The extracted URLs are likely sources for this payload.

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-MSOLE2-af43432fbcb8603c-9980047-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-MSOLE2-af43432fbcb8603c-9980047-0
  • 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
1cd3c9ba76ef1ea1e69766e0c8e3ea944aed6af6d4dadfc1439c00e6dad73936		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6969 bytes

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