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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 569f43fd27aea733…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

31.0 KB Created: 2021-01-28 13:26:14 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 3fc0c5e535e9e10c3035cd3ca1e2779a SHA-1: ba3716c9e4047c39601753989033997730ccb385 SHA-256: 569f43fd27aea73312c6cc6fa2b9182eb57c76941b4d1eb1df40118f022b38c0
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet with an Auto_Open defined name, indicating it will execute macros automatically upon opening. The document body explicitly instructs the user to 'enable Editing and Content mode', a common lure for macro-enabled malware. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN in the Auto_Open macro suggests the execution of arbitrary code. No specific URLs or executable payloads were directly extracted, but the structure strongly indicates a macro-based downloader.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • 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
e52193c86b8b5052ef18c5a9ff1c19de3fb140777495ab6ce0b931067ab86240		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 3218 bytes

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