Malicious Office (OLE) / .XLS — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 04ab576063a991cd…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

275.0 KB Created: 2020-07-10 10:41:45 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: c1e52ca5b9f9c999e2e99dfc25e8a48d SHA-1: 5c887aa64dcd15979b1757f4b96625086fa7ab4b SHA-256: 04ab576063a991cd61273b0cd8cc649f96b634108dd2c33edaa03885c5b378bc
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro. This macro likely executes dangerous functions to download and run a second-stage payload, as indicated by the 'SE_ENABLE_LURE' and 'SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE' heuristics. The presence of an Auto_Open entry and the use of dangerous XLM APIs strongly suggest malicious intent, aiming to bypass security measures and execute arbitrary code.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
887798da0673f4fe669510a241384281b06fead2e8e4312a049d9429cd6aa00e		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 26516 bytes

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