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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 09e56d0ebb4b4186…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

143.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: c451d1f4dcb15ca479e1b1095f194928 SHA-1: af6856b80e7e31a43cf9294711608de00186e52d SHA-256: 09e56d0ebb4b4186d188854f3341230e64903dce24fd7e31dcfa277b915e796b
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample is an Excel 4.0 workbook containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The document body displays a deceptive message prompting the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content', further supporting the malicious intent. The presence of environment evasion and dangerous API calls within the XLM macro indicates a deliberate attempt to compromise the user's system.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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
8d68a755342745b605c67c453b7c26fb2cfbfe6cda56b5c2e3288040b9f070ff		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 169987 bytes

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