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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 09a195847d0c3a1a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

373.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e11c45f02553f97e0487dd77ac078c97 SHA-1: 3aea20433e176250e72af3a9c7f1f0bb286c4b83 SHA-256: 09a195847d0c3a1a2ac9bb62d0a7b68bf729fb65d3248c410138d9c40fbbd13d
162 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The macro uses dangerous functions like RUN and is designed to bypass security by instructing the user to enable macros. It also contains embedded URLs that are likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 5

  • 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
  • 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 https://techserve4u.com/utlqwePl9XKr/alex.html
    • https://evershinesoftware.com/isei5Q7KlsQ5/alex.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
599707db4356dee9b1659b3a18ea6968bd26a6e750ede458308d788c900c5e21
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 5292 bytes