Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 da454e6349f46757…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

73.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-17
MD5: 3b203eef63e8666c1afec7146f3e9048 SHA-1: 35d667dce5c431e27f69b9973dd0ada37e2b7c13 SHA-256: da454e6349f46757bcac834aef1adf990c6cd5ac857c32faf01910cd8485f929
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file is detected as malicious by ClamAV as 'Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0'. Critical heuristics indicate the presence of Excel 4.0 macros with dangerous functions, specifically an Auto_Open macro that utilizes the RUN function. The macro reconstructs several URLs, including 'http://malamortycatering.com/font/sr19MfewPUpklfVo/', which are likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload. The use of Excel 4.0 macros and the Emotet family attribution strongly suggest a downloader attack pattern.

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-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85857e7e81817a-9950241-0
  • 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
9aad8521d90ca7f536d86e805137dbff97d82a2ac842ee968dd491451c1e0d83		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6831 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.