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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 29b03ea658b30cd7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

88.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: f8aa9ca667a5bc9295eda651fd7f31a2 SHA-1: a6b461271da81a6bf15de77b7e737f44d1b68bf8 SHA-256: 29b03ea658b30cd766dfa2e0946fce23682efbfba999033de749a39b9f2d7873
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses a "DocuSign" lure to trick users into enabling macros. Upon execution, the XLM macro sheet contains an Auto_Open entry that likely downloads and executes a payload, indicated by the presence of a URL and a filename for a Windows executable. The macro sheet also contains references to `HALT()` and `URLDownloadToFile`, further suggesting malicious intent.

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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
822d50418048d8c41abb3db278a1947f8be77cbc6997ced3fd832ad7d0733587
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1817 bytes