Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis — malicious · 53c67dc38c386b8a

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:44:45 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-04-23

MD5: 3fcb09c482a4c829188199a43cbebeb8 SHA-1: 7f6a4b30df86b7c9a08dccb272acdcb3aa8dc47d SHA-256: 53c67dc38c386b8a2d8639e2f7b30957436953cbae0ea7f804c9f07cf3021f06

140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Static analysis detected an Auto_Open defined name, indicating that a macro will execute automatically upon opening the file. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like 'RUN' suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands. The document body contains obfuscated text, likely intended to evade detection or mislead the user, but the primary malicious functionality is driven by the XLM macro.

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.
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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`xlm_macros.txt` `b92dbda030ae933a708ec2cdff5f043ebd38969f0a2b500359451cc4eb5ded73`	xlm-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing)	6782 bytes

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