Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 37944271d8224e6b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.5 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:41:06 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: a52ebc49179a9b4f701f8e926b48dd47 SHA-1: 6b2e0f47a35093d84996170fb4b447e991fd1521 SHA-256: 37944271d8224e6be37a9a9f5bb8407f18f8a26d9a296ffc64de72498f6cf5ee
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The critical heuristics indicate the presence of Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a common technique for executing malicious code. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN further increases the risk. While the exact payload is not clear from the truncated document body and macro listing, the Auto_Open entry strongly suggests an attempt to execute arbitrary code.

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
710932801e3c2f60ff92047aecb9af435916a5cc4ecb9e9246167a3af3264582		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6806 bytes

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