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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 1b719ce08de027c5…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

80.0 KB Created: 2020-06-28 18:49:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 4ff01f434fc4e749b6849f8f91df592e SHA-1: edd85c3426323f9b501b93ccbc9db26b5dc3bc98 SHA-256: 1b719ce08de027c58ea2b699753a9189337f1b80f78c342f9f02dee8a8ef6f84
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 PowerShell

This XLS file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is designed to execute automatically when the file is opened. The document body presents a 'protected document' lure, instructing the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' to view the content. This is a common social engineering tactic to bypass macro security and execute malicious code. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the 'enable content' lure strongly suggest a malware delivery mechanism.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion close gate critical OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_CLOSE
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes environment checks with GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW, then shows a fake corruption/error message and closes the workbook when the host fails those checks. This is a malware sandbox-evasion pattern, even when the later payload stage is hidden behind obfuscated defined-name flow.
  • 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
57915d57bdaf9a473a17dab3bd71f3912a8332100c88c71fd751cc3e88768586		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 30549 bytes

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