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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4938e82883750be4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

233.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 71b53a62e6144449c10df0e23770ee89 SHA-1: bae25ba91898548c140cf4907f0d9ba517e8197e SHA-256: 4938e82883750be4215ae1e8a8b531446c23196a2a8638fc13f8af2f65f5aa5b
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro. The document body displays a social engineering lure, instructing the user to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content" to view or edit the document. The presence of the Auto_Open macro and the dangerous formula APIs (RUN) indicates that the macro is designed to execute automatically upon opening. The environment evasion check suggests an attempt to hinder analysis.

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
b95be40827339c78a36504c3d9137c3c6173d7adb379716061424e43d26f5656		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 330447 bytes

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