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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5cdfa7ca920c7ce7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

331.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 1b46da508e848d4f336f670ad484bf04 SHA-1: 70ffeaf8a80e0555f95818451e2b284ecd2cf908 SHA-256: 5cdfa7ca920c7ce7fc7eeffbee4f3468604194947521c8b0a727bd9d6cbdcb84
242 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros that are triggered by the Auto_Open function. These macros utilize dangerous functions like RUN and CALL, and specifically reference ShellExecute, indicating an attempt to execute arbitrary code. The script attempts to construct strings for API calls, suggesting it downloads and executes a second-stage payload from the embedded URL.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.Docusign0521-9864805-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.Docusign0521-9864805-0
  • Reference to ShellExecute API high SC_STR_SHELLEXEC
    Reference to ShellExecute API
  • 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.
  • 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://ctxpress.com/ds/261120.gif
    • https://ctxpress.com/ds/261120.gif�

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
aa837a287543a9593dc9ad53c5a1043539349d9d7158b9d02f92e2bb7330dc0f
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6677 bytes