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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4dfd4edba19df49e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

240.5 KB Created: 2020-11-11 04:31:19 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: cf10c91ff88a7bd972922dcbae98a1f0 SHA-1: c594e8097a9bb0b096ebbc82e9c4f8882338c6a9 SHA-256: 4dfd4edba19df49e73a225ee9fc39ee212d3fa1fd48811a892364bbdbba1568f
60 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is an encrypted Excel 4.0 macro sheet, indicated by the OLE_XLM_ENCRYPTED_MACROSHEET heuristic. The presence of an auto-open macro (OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN) suggests it's designed to execute code upon opening. The document body is heavily obfuscated and unreadable, providing no direct clues to the payload's intent. However, the combination of an encrypted macro sheet and an auto-open function strongly implies a malicious intent, likely to download and execute a secondary payload.

Heuristics 2

  • Encrypted Excel 4.0 macro sheet high OLE_XLM_ENCRYPTED_MACROSHEET
    Workbook contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet and BIFF FILEPASS encryption. Password-protected XLM macro sheets, especially the default Excel password path, are a common malware evasion pattern because static formula extraction may fail until the workbook is decrypted.
  • 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.