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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2c6b0ee452637a77…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

426.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: c1492b79151e949fd66e148a5f439fc0 SHA-1: fe46c30e6a8eff7f4f63a19d25488d52e496e4b3 SHA-256: 2c6b0ee452637a77bcede51eb3d38da226a747358e58cc39ae66faeb06da1561
240 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1059.004 Python

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains a Workbook_Open macro and uses dangerous functions like RUN, indicating malicious intent. The document body contains a URL, and the heuristics indicate the use of ShellExecute and URLDownloadToFile APIs, suggesting the file attempts to download and execute a second-stage payload from the URL https://mueblesmaple.com.mx/19.gif. The presence of a macro-enable lure further supports this. The family is unknown due to lack of specific indicators.

Heuristics 8

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • Reference to ShellExecute API high SC_STR_SHELLEXEC
    Reference to ShellExecute API
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs high 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.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • 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.
  • 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 https://mueblesmaple.com.mx/19.gif�
    • https://mueblesmaple.com.mx/19.gif
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
e26e570691e37538cb153a294d4bd7899ebc79f39ec63fd34cf1eae37efa26f6
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 9455 bytes
macros.bas
8c21c322bb8b23e7dbfa4da0de1c41676162b0810e96582d1365413c12adc768
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 977 bytes