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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4d997fbc98912cd1…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

431.0 KB Created: 2021-07-29 19:03:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-08-05
MD5: 671018bac1236b9109ab2ecfc6ed544e SHA-1: bb1b3f2ea208815d644cc4e8349e2c87a2ab4a82 SHA-256: 4d997fbc98912cd159e168e00ce9b174c06fcff6f873e56de74e6a9a78ffac10
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry, which is designed to execute automatically when the workbook is opened. The heuristics indicate a lure to enable macros and a reference to PowerShell, along with a sequence matching 'POWERshEll.ExE wGet'. The embedded URL 'https://venomtool.com/test.exe' is likely the second-stage payload. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the lure to enable macros strongly suggest a malicious intent to download and execute further malware.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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 https://venomtool.com/test.exe

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
77526317693988808943c9b58a3ee3cfe53fc53006ec2ab7a604bb8c52dec5d0		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 916 bytes

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