Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c6a201438827608e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

96.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-12
MD5: 220aacbf3ef95514000556090a0aa0a1 SHA-1: 62ae06be79c524e8464705e66ae2f902b5a38105 SHA-256: c6a201438827608e2ac3c304b16d7ca32ec90eead04f4b6b59d1b3203b0e0ccd
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Execution T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The critical heuristics indicate the use of dangerous formula APIs within these macros, and ClamAV detection explicitly identifies it as an Emotet downloader. The macro execution likely downloads and executes a second-stage 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-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
44b7c45128c9ebff1e2d4c700363a400191ad3820db3f6fdcc49f6028eab1dc9		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8173 bytes

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