Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e35f33998658c918…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

60.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-14
MD5: 3edb1f0b2d3fbfb27d2acdc8923edf70 SHA-1: c6faf92babe7b7b1458ca178b3c57fbab2c68d44 SHA-256: e35f33998658c918db33f0e0190c6deff15d430f7603cc7bfc14aee4f600fa10
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 macro, 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 known Emotet variant. The reconstructed URLs are: https://alpsawning.co.za/logs/KM83/ https://alrotec.co.uk/wp-includes/DD2jwgazTKsp/ http://accl.co.in/images/7CMc2NlOo4p6pn6ljDw/

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
81a890043a2bf9bada66e5f829f683706b013cf3d1f82e11ea536e934629d60f		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8316 bytes

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