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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3498d2d135499c6a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

67.5 KB Created: 2020-09-20 21:17:44
MD5: f08210aa421f683c13c7b738fedbd0a3 SHA-1: 3ac1d8534cb0bdeecd0fd1c930b96987b195e532 SHA-256: 3498d2d135499c6a180b699c616055f889e2a23c72caaa8ea50d538e26c3043f
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1218 System Binary Proxy Execution

The presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro utilizing dangerous functions like RUN, strongly indicates malicious intent. The heuristic 'SE_LOLBIN_RUN_COMMAND' further suggests that the macro is designed to execute commands, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. While the embedded URL was flagged as benign, the overall behavior points to a downloader or initial access stage.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • Visible LOLBin command execution instruction high SE_LOLBIN_RUN_COMMAND
    Document contains instructions or visible command text involving Windows script/execution tools such as PowerShell, mshta, cmd, rundll32, or regsvr32
  • 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.
  • 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://tinyurl.com/y4bp38z3

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
b0ba232bc0a11dffaa5ff9358557dab79d2fc03f82e691734ecca71722056e29
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 948 bytes