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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 41d5325945221f6d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.0 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 317af6e5f6eaf8bae2ada357a57c70e9 SHA-1: 1a32cdfaf95109b90de11ede13e45e208072b326 SHA-256: 41d5325945221f6d823612b664eaed43550d5737247a617f0a49002689b2ea58
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses a lure to trick the user into enabling macros. Upon enabling, the Auto_Open macro executes. This macro is configured to run a command that downloads a second-stage payload from the URL http://0xc12a24f5/cc.html. The command is obfuscated using character escaping.

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

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