Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 df90c8ece755d03b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

60.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-09
MD5: 0714af7a1abca58c0dd8bd4a581e81da SHA-1: 856ed67244b7c72c42200a939f312c4e1cf002ad SHA-256: df90c8ece755d03b8585f6515e87836b10508d7a75d10e347b1e1cb84083d228
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious Link/Object: Malicious File T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function that utilizes the RUN API. This is a strong indicator of malicious intent, as confirmed by ClamAV's detection of Emotet. The macro sheet contains several URLs which are likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload. The presence of the Auto_Open function and the use of the RUN API directly support the attack pattern of a macro-based downloader.

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-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea85817e7e81383e-9951566-0
  • 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
b0977b9e11bf00316d56cd31cbabdb104f07fb970b77976c3c8385028ecc759e		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8445 bytes

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