Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e697f94e970d07b4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

95.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-26
MD5: 452dfac8b939c1c7c9190339d9392762 SHA-1: 34ed585bc9131b26480181a46c586c2ca3ccb159 SHA-256: e697f94e970d07b48cea52c3ddf2a06402e2243d20cb32e0d919a00e47a909f3
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, a known technique for executing malicious code. ClamAV detection explicitly names Emotet, and the use of Auto_Open with dangerous functions like RUN indicates a downloader pattern. The macro sheet itself is the primary IOC.

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-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Emotet-ea81817e7f807ab1-9952142-0
  • 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
98f1ff2f8ad02f615407af2b43d3cce9fda2c4449c93c2eb92d1085006ba4331		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8144 bytes

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