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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2d23d89cdf207e2e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.8 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: cdf5f8906b15f623a27a5f8c01eb295e SHA-1: 66c3444c4a98940dc52889efea1c20943cfe58f2 SHA-256: 2d23d89cdf207e2ee921cd2f1d73b62e386dfdd317d7d58b3d55ed383ebd8e09
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses a lure to trick the user into enabling macros. Upon enabling, it executes a command to download a second-stage payload from the reconstructed URL 'http://0xc12a24f5/c.html'. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the lure strongly indicate malicious intent.

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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes