Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 bcad9bdbe72a1f7e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

95.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-07
MD5: bc3d85943ce889bf41daab5f071078c4 SHA-1: ea26e7ddf376ccb066f251eb5e49c88839357687 SHA-256: bcad9bdbe72a1f7ecc52208e0776cde64e7ec3740d4689c7dea8f40f4014c442
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. ClamAV detection confirms this as Emotet, a downloader family. The macro likely executes a second-stage payload, as indicated by the 'RUN' function API usage.

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
523f08d64fe74053379afa1c17ff864c973b25832f08e5feeb11abc784ec9fbf		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8132 bytes

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