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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0ba1f4f93e27dc57…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

367.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 4eae6779a17d81fd6a12852b9b7b55d9 SHA-1: eb1c52f59e8699f89842a9286b0061e9e8f1d0e9 SHA-256: 0ba1f4f93e27dc57b1651412eb73d1558f8b63f6caefa617a1eb81badd87395d
102 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing Excel 4.0 macros, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN heuristic. It includes an Auto_Open defined name, which is a common technique for automatic execution upon opening. The document body contains obfuscated strings that reconstruct to URLs, likely for downloading a second-stage payload. The SE_ENABLE_LURE heuristic confirms the presence of a prompt to enable macros, a typical social engineering tactic.

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.
  • 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://smartpalakatva.com/edQsUZOLlE/th.html
    • https://pilstlcommodities.com/Ov4FlB3lpy/th.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
e61304013e31eadd8bf35fc5d3e6cbadd61463966f2a2d09ae24f65eb0ee3106
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8349 bytes