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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 42cc8676011c0bc9…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

148.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7d2e254f0ae3fae3d91bbe8d5c77d8c4 SHA-1: 26b2a3ce0018438f73aedc2065acf387f259ac5c SHA-256: 42cc8676011c0bc93b9ccfca3521a32c2e9eab55ddee74858b063d854bc33929
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions and includes environment-evasion checks. The document body text is a social engineering lure, instructing the user to 'Enable Editing and Enable Content' to view the document, which is a common tactic for macro-based malware. The Auto_Open macro likely downloads and executes a second-stage payload.

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
5f9517e154d023b084d43a7b5933b0170e1c618572a95fa74866d8c6658d3237		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 172425 bytes

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