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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 182d46dbe8114da7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

41.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 4eb2dea3d990d97a0d4f5024d513e85d SHA-1: 2f8663d8bd32640570510b876970b8b97f11db51 SHA-256: 182d46dbe8114da7564dc646c0baadfa67ad69f171593880369505f8aefb33b4
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The critical heuristics indicate the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open function that utilizes dangerous formula APIs like RUN. This suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands upon opening the spreadsheet, likely to download and run a secondary payload. No specific family could be identified, but the technique is common for initial execution.

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
806e7e8f10cfae254006089a5d94940e32e3ba61f56aa21b5a21b28edbf35f7a		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8015 bytes

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