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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 23a522982d9c28db…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

380.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 8a9d73f64341ad12aafa54e42806c68c SHA-1: 4e68a802a25a330b010ae856f8be5f127fa7db8a SHA-256: 23a522982d9c28db6aa3783f6ff7e6228437ef6af9b39643b5f31d41d546b345
102 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, indicating an attempt to automatically execute code upon opening. The document body contains embedded URLs and text suggesting a lure to enable macros or editing. The presence of XLM macros and the embedded URLs strongly suggest a downloader or initial access mechanism. The XLM macros likely attempt to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs.

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 — context-specific rules above attribute URLs they actually evaluated; this rule lists URLs that were present in the bytes but were not otherwise tied to a specific finding.
    URL https://thedeformo.com/zrbLAqMKy21Y/lena.html
    • https://faithfulroofingco.com/nmsY1dCNaBRO/lena.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
13ea4a1fd330f9266fa91027043baa61f334e3ac691e10ce14b7c7fee97c551c
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8812 bytes