Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f3a9716c62958ed8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

60.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-06-11
MD5: 5511d45be4bd5deb781b567fbd00780e SHA-1: 18c372959669ad1d83784a1b5699cecf6b72389f SHA-256: f3a9716c62958ed8ecb8bb6e64fcea7cb45f982bdfb264bf7189afcd1f4156da
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, which is a known technique for executing malicious code. The macro uses dangerous functions like RUN, indicating it's designed to download and execute a payload. ClamAV detection confirms this, identifying it as Emotet. The extracted URLs are likely sources for the second-stage payload.

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
a2d033763c15494b12e31c971331fca1f0f387966c5e482c3931d5611c30d5d1
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8260 bytes