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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 37cad4af392fa67e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

62.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: a9a4dc13d6aa1048cbe6fee8b677cc8a SHA-1: b2d43ee61a085649be172f235bafd0bf69a9a449 SHA-256: 37cad4af392fa67e5bb0d8df00139c1f4466c35c61310ed8e29ea89b90cdf6b5
240 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing both VBA and XLM macros. The presence of a Workbook_Open macro and a heuristic indicating a 'macro/content-enable lure' suggests the document is designed to trick the user into enabling macros. The XLM macros utilize dangerous functions like RUN, and the sample references ShellExecute and URLDownloadToFile APIs, indicating an intent to download and execute external content. The embedded URL http://blog.vokasidev.com/crun20.gif is likely used for this purpose.

Heuristics 8

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • Reference to ShellExecute API high SC_STR_SHELLEXEC
    Reference to ShellExecute API
  • 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.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • 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.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • 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
  • 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 http://blog.vokasidev.com/crun20.gif�
    • http://blog.vokasidev.com/crun20.gif

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
d4222e1ad83b892546402a65bce1342319760d5f0e17d0c73ae5f07e792beb86
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 9447 bytes
macros.bas
c29faf2da8b6b84c63880f8f3ff09f138acdaa94ad9406cab75b546ae0e54428
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 979 bytes