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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 16f0397138cdce4f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

367.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 6e605977fe5002475e0320e369203ef4 SHA-1: 9033a6f28f716d4e7f74244d33fd261a2a75bec1 SHA-256: 16f0397138cdce4f6dfc0c613bb30da05d3858c1bd341e3ec9b19812709845ec
102 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet that contains an Auto_Open entry, indicating it will execute macros upon opening. The document body and extracted macro content reveal instructions to enable macros and contain URLs that are likely used to download a second-stage payload. The presence of an Auto_Open entry and the lure to enable macros strongly suggest a malicious intent to execute arbitrary code.

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://silvertoncc.com/ys1Btp80hx/th.html
    • https://christleadersworld.com/1TaIPHnbwbNV/th.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
740337535414e50f998f7a71055f9de0e2208abc42faca490883ba1d9c48deb1
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8349 bytes