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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4c856b5a72acd9ae…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

180.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 5130359a0dcfcb355fb230d22334be5d SHA-1: 028335577c6cdb32922f721664886c765210ff13 SHA-256: 4c856b5a72acd9aef79cfe6230c2c37d343041ecc460857c5b92412e32d611e3
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to enable macros. The XLM macro sheet contains dangerous functions, including a RUN command, indicating it likely downloads and executes a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs. The presence of the Auto_Open macro and the lure strongly suggest a malicious intent to compromise the user's system.

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.
  • 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
917baaae0e48794e5eb73ae3d5cf93c43110b97da5df3e45bc2f236b5551c875
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 27158 bytes