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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3a26d714db6bcc16…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

234.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d6178e66b2e106d41b80f0a65648193f SHA-1: bd63130e0f98474237cf2f0dc75c72df540b0f35 SHA-256: 3a26d714db6bcc160be992c7640243c245122f43747c7a3843a81f2e9c3803d2
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro. Heuristics indicate the use of dangerous formula APIs like RUN and environment-evasion techniques. The document body's prompt to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' is a common lure for macro-enabled documents. The Auto_Open macro is designed to execute commands, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload, and includes environment-evasion checks.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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
c3bcee791dbd19fe614b49e51475913c7ea93e94cb7f422e296c27056662c5c2		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 333286 bytes

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