Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3553f8a419381839…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-25 10:44:32 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 70bd0142f6f2aeef9cd3364a6505bea5 SHA-1: 11020a05173c3c325fb7f61f879c413d3837285c SHA-256: 3553f8a419381839e8380d87fea969fafaf6ddeef21cec2017c8c0535ec34d8f
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name. This indicates an attempt to automatically execute code when the document is opened. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN suggests the macro is intended to download and execute a secondary payload, a common technique for malware delivery.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs critical 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.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
6467bedb71ad68c1ccfb8d5b4025e6e38e395fe6e3410a4adc2e4ba98e18aa1b		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6656 bytes

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