Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 17ad38cfbfee8dd0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:43:37 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e72221c627fe79ca208b7fa8ceb0f3fa SHA-1: 67499c58b57e291169fcff3f8ff4933f5b095fd8 SHA-256: 17ad38cfbfee8dd0b650ab990c7545ce8300058cc7d4800fbeba2c4a6e941c8b
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled workbook. Static analysis detected an Auto_Open defined name, indicating that a macro will execute automatically upon opening the workbook. The presence of dangerous formula APIs in the Auto_Open macro suggests it is designed to perform malicious actions, likely downloading and executing a second-stage 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.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
9604224cd0e9a9ff453143a59fa18bee5b6cd42866c5ddd8b2cf0aa7c365212b		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6636 bytes

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