Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 423c069531aaf4e8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

304.5 KB Created: 2019-10-22 07:10:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2020-09-15
MD5: e0de615d0a78b69b3b81bfac60bf037d SHA-1: 7f412c7fe13bbb433f9e1c2119405eaf3b914262 SHA-256: 423c069531aaf4e8b3208735fd9d4b95d3f482090460ef3702ed65a515375cee
282 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros, including an Auto_Open entry, which is a critical finding. The macro executes a PowerShell command that downloads a file from 'http://skidware-malwrhunterteams.com/scanme.txt' and executes it. This indicates the document is likely a malicious attachment designed to deliver a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 7

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (1 URL) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime), across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell), or split across multi-char fragment cells a download formula concatenates by reference (=A1&A2&… / CONCATENATE(...)). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries, LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells, and FORMULA cell-reference concatenation in token order.
  • Reference to PowerShell high SC_STR_POWERSHELL
    Reference to PowerShell
  • LOLBin token sequence in document text high SE_LOLBIN_RUN_COMMAND
    Extracted document text contains a Windows script/execution tool name (PowerShell, mshta, cmd, rundll32, regsvr32, …) within 220 characters of a dangerous flag, command verb, or URL. This is a visible 'run this' instruction in HTML/PDF/RTF lure bodies, or — in macro-laden Office files — the macro's own string-pool entries appearing adjacent in extracted text.
  • 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.
  • 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://skidware-malwrhunterteams.com/scanme.txt Referenced by macro

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1094 bytes
SHA-256: 950ceacfd6a77cd421c467639f77f271a65f7ff3776add3b4934f004cda5ca22
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Macro
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - Application.Quit len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!A9591 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - gefg len=7 ptgRef3d  Macro!A1 
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' Sheet,Reference,Formula,Value
'  Macro,A2,RETURN(),""
'  Macro,A10000,EXEC(A9999&A9998),""
'  Macro,A29999,[],""
'  Macro,A30003,HALT(),""

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