Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d25bf9b65ae3c371…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

151.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: bd7ffd1ed1c0ca05da66b2a1daba15bc SHA-1: ed6344a28dec036e770c0a07bc2cce3f4d8d7537 SHA-256: d25bf9b65ae3c371de27a116a91ae5f84f7249bf14e294c7fcc82386bdfc9e64
280 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample contains a Workbook_Open macro that utilizes CreateObject to instantiate Wscript.Shell. This script then proceeds to execute a batch file located at 'c:\programdata\jledshf.bat' and a VBScript at 'c:\programdata\wetidjks.vbs'. The embedded VBA code also contains a heavily obfuscated string that decodes to multiple URLs, likely serving as a source for a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection name 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel02226-9938630-0' strongly suggests an Emotet family association.

Heuristics 7

  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel02226-9938630-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel02226-9938630-0
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
c49f2df77c50e10269216d97c3efdf7c32f9f18ba5d8fd42a9b144f48e100040
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 5709 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.