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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 112bc8a25e344d8f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.8 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: b322b37f8774e130cc8d9da96b56bce3 SHA-1: 7c52f0f5df0650b67e2a9b544b59a3b96abed484 SHA-256: 112bc8a25e344d8f99f971beb34502a198703acd33b41afc26f46cd1ac6e41b5
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled workbook that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute a command. The macro attempts to disguise its malicious nature by instructing the user to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content". The extracted macro defines a string that, when executed, runs a command to download a file from the URL "http://0xc12a24f5/c.html". This indicates a downloader or initial access payload.

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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes