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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 432e43601e8507ba…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

144.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 036e6212aab4c0c6cf41974c0200bfed SHA-1: ac4a1f67267077ba5279becdf375740f2057f48d SHA-256: 432e43601e8507bad102d88515c27532910cb2af71bf4e969cfd3e96eaf8b085
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. It impersonates DocuSign, a common lure to trick users into enabling macros. The extracted URLs are likely used to download a second-stage payload. The XLM macro itself is heavily truncated, preventing a more detailed analysis of its specific actions.

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.
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
5e5feba7ac6ef308fa74ad2052e0f89da4ae87559a31b5790ed416ca644d13a8
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 4794 bytes