Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 52c7ac2d07236083…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

1.10 MB Created: 2008-01-21 08:47:21 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e83176ec6ce9401936727d586b9e6ba1 SHA-1: 9c78a4aa8cce025581022157efa8733e56bab722 SHA-256: 52c7ac2d072360839b8e0a52f45e2ffc50467926170276c5b52d091c739c88aa
208 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is identified as malicious due to the presence of Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro. Heuristics indicate the use of dangerous formula APIs like RUN, suggesting the macro is designed to execute arbitrary code. The presence of 'XL4Poppy' in the document body and as a sheet name strongly suggests this is a variant of the Poppy macro malware. No VBA macros were found to contain executable statements, indicating the primary malicious functionality resides within the XLM macros.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • Legacy Excel formula macro virus marker critical OLE_XLS_FORMULA_MACRO_VIRUS
    Workbook stream contains self-identifying legacy Excel formula macro virus markers. This indicates the document carries formula macro virus content even when no VBA project or modern XLM macro-sheet structure is present.
  • 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.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
32ba84dc8e37e63a34fa0ae7cfd9ed80987054b5c42bb7e5999acb939a89c3cc		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1088467 bytes
macros.bas
894ab84e4c03b0c16039e8b42c431c65c23b76a18a397227a99886d6400da4bf		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 3617 bytes

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