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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 37541b5a97a391ff…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

277.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: f75980b86bd6ec72bec67a45a9e424bd SHA-1: 59cb624ef59997a09c76f5e76f666835ce93536b SHA-256: 37541b5a97a391ff41221a8486d206db6263686950825780eaec989113bddff7
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1059.004 Unix Shell

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros with an Auto_Open entry, indicating it will execute automatically when the document is opened. It also contains a lure to enable macros by impersonating DocuSign. The macros reference the URLDownloadToFileA API, suggesting they are intended to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs. The presence of the Auto_Open macro and the URLDownloadToFileA API call strongly suggests a downloader attack pattern.

Heuristics 5

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
c279a53992dccc582a886c4e47b06b0874a20f4bf0e2dc850aedba7223fc0f1c
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1964 bytes