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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 359357288e8ce3ea…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

83.0 KB Created: 2020-06-22 16:20:38 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: bac18a313443f5359e24278d824444eb SHA-1: 32b59084582e71bb9b2102320c22dea274ef6bdf SHA-256: 359357288e8ce3ea6f788d1e13686d4ef169c49ffb008cc31ab99b00479886ea
220 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1140 Deobfuscate or Obfuscate

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an 'Auto_Open' macro to execute. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' to bypass security measures. The presence of an XLM Auto_Open defined name and environment evasion techniques indicate a malicious dropper. ClamAV detection confirms its malicious nature.

Heuristics 5

  • 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 environment-evasion close gate critical OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_CLOSE
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes environment checks with GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW, then shows a fake corruption/error message and closes the workbook when the host fails those checks. This is a malware sandbox-evasion pattern, even when the later payload stage is hidden behind obfuscated defined-name flow.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Dropper.Agent-8803320-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Dropper.Agent-8803320-0
  • 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
572b9e0e6471f57696935dbc62d0a2c24eb4e85f19f0efc2de3b4696a0909496		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 30086 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.