Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c0b609b0a994f32d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

55.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-21
MD5: bc801ceae6b85b6cf378d1b3ce6961d1 SHA-1: f2442f1dc9f12220ce6f36e1d926d75308c76520 SHA-256: c0b609b0a994f32dfd5188ab8ba02e71b8acd30c95c4573c6a5aeebd4e6e01e5
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is identified as malicious by ClamAV and exhibits critical heuristic firings for Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function that uses the RUN API. This indicates the macro is designed to execute an external command or payload. The presence of the URL 'http://dle_old/9giglHrg2t/' strongly suggests this macro is a downloader for a second-stage payload, 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-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-aa87d5786a858772-9953435-0
  • 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
a7548ac7a025cfd2abe3908afa056d3f808e305fa452b405038e54aceb66169e		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 7711 bytes

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