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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 57e09ef7116fb426…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

228.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9b31f67a7164bd1053cc190e94fc353c SHA-1: f4f38ffb5526be98292e59918e810d412a1d8b98 SHA-256: 57e09ef7116fb4266184bdf7889eb78288f84f4fd59eab3f3c8076750036187e
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro, which is a common technique for executing malicious code upon opening the document. The document body contains a social engineering lure to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content", further supporting the malicious intent. The Auto_Open macro likely executes dangerous functions, as indicated by the heuristic firings.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
103e9286c9d477741c78d4c724ae89bd46f8bbd11de8ae4a9335dac8ce39f60f		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 325128 bytes

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