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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5b2cd57cc3fbf018…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

274.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-09-22
MD5: d37c2cb0dc1e621f48c705e12920cfae SHA-1: 8d3fef47059f8aa4ed09fa3a1dcd3a0abab4c4af SHA-256: 5b2cd57cc3fbf018001edc8b5bf0e1ec193d709137c8eb72a136f47b51fb76c6
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros with an Auto_Open entry, indicating automatic execution upon opening. It also includes a lure to enable macros, impersonating a document signing service. The extracted macro content suggests it attempts to download a DLL from 'hotelstarpacific.com/netgteq.dll' and execute it using 'run,DLL32', likely establishing a malicious presence on the system.

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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
2acc40593deff0c34d67182765876672f026f8c9c5e7440b3c57c2eef485a4a2
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 3778 bytes