Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e26cea16093ba340…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

60.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-20
MD5: ee1ee0a5a6d58e06630e16671428db25 SHA-1: 879737d11b7e092228c7ed94f8a343d87d1aa5db SHA-256: e26cea16093ba340eb8a12cd6488b94af613a46b988621ff7edc8bde965baeba
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The macros are designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs. ClamAV detection confirms this is a downloader associated with the Emotet family.

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
d77c0e98c974009fe5584bce5e0ffd72a8b15ac4e83c1240090b3dfbcca2aa7b		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8320 bytes

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