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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2a520ba3cbc0dc83…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

679.5 KB Created: 2020-06-22 10:41:03 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e796d64a1dbe3675a6d7ae12f33c8ca2 SHA-1: 4b0cdda90016315194f56d600772254590dde472 SHA-256: 2a520ba3cbc0dc830b35ee739b49c78e01932712ff61ab2e300d65a24c21810e
540 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File T1140 Deobfuscate or Obfuscate T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is an Excel spreadsheet containing VBA macros, specifically a Workbook_Open macro that utilizes Shell() to execute an embedded PE executable. The document body includes a lure instructing the user to 'allow editing and enable content'. The presence of VirtualAlloc, LoadLibrary, and GetProcAddress API calls, along with the embedded PE executable and ClamAV detection (Win.Dropper.Hideproc-6663113-0), strongly indicates a dropper functionality. The script's intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload from the embedded executable.

Heuristics 14

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • Embedded PE executable critical OLE_EMBEDDED_EXE
    MZ/PE header found inside document — possible embedded executable
  • ClamAV: Win.Dropper.Hideproc-6663113-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Win.Dropper.Hideproc-6663113-0
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Reference to LoadLibrary API high SC_STR_LOADLIBRARY
    Reference to LoadLibrary API
  • Reference to GetProcAddress API high SC_STR_GETPROCADDRESS
    Reference to GetProcAddress API
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • Reference to VirtualAlloc API medium SC_STR_VIRTUALALLOC
    Reference to VirtualAlloc API
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • 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 — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink

Extracted artifacts 3

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
c169e65af5c7f2f78e6df72e53ecd84df6b2c5ac4082e5ec4caadb5b7643f7d5		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 10884 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.
embedded_office_00005c65.exe
f5c3d0efb2cdffdc7987538ee3d54cd2ef5822013f23bcef7a1a6d7c78e2fbc7		 embedded-pe Office MZ+PE at offset 0x5C65 672155 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Win.Dropper.Hideproc-6663113-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
ole10native_00.bin
968ce039cd0aa31e7cad6058649c91cc72868753f2bc4127f7eba88f075eb20f		 ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD0048EDF4/Ole10Native 575143 bytes

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