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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5ae6dabd12f218a3…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

380.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 98e1bd018a165a38ea6cfa4293a51a65 SHA-1: 40225d2d0edcec315e4104bd536b5f95696c108d SHA-256: 5ae6dabd12f218a3a0866fa1dbfd7232d0286455ad335208195fe7b59f3057d5
102 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing Excel 4.0 macros, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN heuristic. It also contains a macro-enable lure, suggesting it's designed to trick users into running malicious code. The extracted URLs and the reconstructed registry key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\Server' point to potential download and persistence mechanisms. The XLM macro's explicit use of 'CALL' and 'RUN' functions, along with the reconstructed URL, strongly suggests it's intended to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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.
  • 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
  • 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 https://hermescomm.net/x9NvrhL0/lena.html
    • https://asistenciajuridicaintegral.com/6YiCkNix5/lena.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
be629cb484f8d82e38c4234ddbad4f1755e762b9c1c8359642d99f8c77e6e858
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8812 bytes