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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 1bd43f2538b2bc05…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

180.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 26292eb487c8bb776302b6ff49d52644 SHA-1: eeb02262d92a5ef135f6bf5f2a5d44a6d8ce1aa8 SHA-256: 1bd43f2538b2bc05558069dcba33405504c439f0df0d9e5deb12674e28642554
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File: Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to enable macros. The XLM macros contain dangerous formula APIs, including RUN, indicating an attempt to execute external code. The extracted URLs are likely used to download a second-stage payload.

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 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.
  • 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
917baaae0e48794e5eb73ae3d5cf93c43110b97da5df3e45bc2f236b5551c875
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 27158 bytes