Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c82327ec70d09849…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

95.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-07
MD5: f476a81acc067b9469f9b2562489809c SHA-1: 0a737c212b53277a882e7f963d54dea147ca81b1 SHA-256: c82327ec70d098494ce2f622711b59f178fba4b272ad9cfbff2a40ab2ba107ca
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file is identified as a malicious Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro, which is known to be used for executing arbitrary code. ClamAV detection confirms this, identifying it as 'Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0', suggesting it functions as a downloader for the Emotet banking trojan.

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
41dc7a1bfac2ba5e972c30b76287c310e817e566a66459ca11a98699ae0e0a12		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8153 bytes

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