Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 da9d3b84063bde06…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

142.1 KB Created: 2022-01-19 09:31:16 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 04e3d96e933cb3eff66656e001f68ab8 SHA-1: 27c4fe4cd975808bcfd17efc213da392f04a2a1d SHA-256: da9d3b84063bde0697546e7a9b3e2ab5f8283698dfb032f76018f28b367146f4
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. ClamAV detection further confirms this, identifying it as 'Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0'. The presence of XLM macros suggests the file is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload, a common tactic for Emotet. The document body content appears to be a lure, disguised as a blood pressure tracker.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0
  • 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
592af8991900f2f7058dc7ea90a33320ae293c7e541db4222a7b7f9c04f59d96
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8469 bytes