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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 58b39c981bfd4ac3…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

62.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 4aa7995afc3c4bd5de7e9408156813bd SHA-1: c0b438e548cbe7eeffc17599c97f5e77068499c6 SHA-256: 58b39c981bfd4ac3d6d67c00b54150d2583e54b8ee8e7a1083ea98eba9461f33
240 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.004 Scripting: PowerShell T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1059.001 PowerShell

The file is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of both XLM and VBA macros, including an Auto_Open function and a Workbook_Open macro, which are commonly used to execute malicious code upon opening. The document body contains an embedded URL, and the heuristics confirm references to ShellExecute and URLDownloadToFile APIs, suggesting the macro attempts to download and execute a second-stage payload from the provided URL. The 'Macro/content-enable lure' heuristic further indicates that the document is designed to trick the user into enabling macros.

Heuristics 8

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • Reference to ShellExecute API high SC_STR_SHELLEXEC
    Reference to ShellExecute API
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs high 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.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • 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 macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • 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
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://blog.vokasidev.com/crun20.gif�
    • http://blog.vokasidev.com/crun20.gif

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
d4222e1ad83b892546402a65bce1342319760d5f0e17d0c73ae5f07e792beb86
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 9447 bytes
macros.bas
c29faf2da8b6b84c63880f8f3ff09f138acdaa94ad9406cab75b546ae0e54428
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 979 bytes