Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis — malicious · 2a44c06f28657c6a

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

33.5 KB Created: 2020-12-02 14:34:21 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-02-19

MD5: 1cc3e4b6508f9438d26e5a751e187eb9 SHA-1: b8705c8192616662ef4619b7a3c3d9460cafcf94 SHA-256: 2a44c06f28657c6a4d854bab5a7aa8225320c8dbc54b5bdbea20db9ea667f4e1

140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1059.001 PowerShell

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. The document body uses a common social engineering tactic to prompt the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' to view the protected content. The presence of the Auto_Open macro suggests it will execute automatically upon opening, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`xlm_macros.txt` `25957b5ea70b866d86548e0ed5f88ccefd40a04ab5e58fd63a223eaf6c59101e`	xlm-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing)	3376 bytes

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