Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 bdafef494a557ecb…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

142.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-03-25
MD5: d9690ceed4c82b049489a1af27e849f4 SHA-1: b218a9c45e4f0af7b9d422b55f56e4eb5c800ebf SHA-256: bdafef494a557ecb74a1f6298441a70c8605ecb2c3819f4e9499f9a975f9301f
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 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro that uses the RUN API, a common technique for executing downloaded payloads. The macro attempts to construct a path likely intended for execution, such as 'SyWows64\Windows\cornerstonecreativestudios.com/boards/ilsFKKHH7GaR/'. This strongly suggests the file acts as a downloader for further malicious content, consistent with Emotet's typical behavior.

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-adc2d23d2dc26dd0-9950240-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-adc2d23d2dc26dd0-9950240-0
  • 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
eee0a3dec225fd0088c74c7ab34b064dd06b0d4f7198f4d9a113e7b902ce722a		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6706 bytes

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