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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5de4758e99f40336…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

373.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 227e6dedfd555dc93afae5239a333332 SHA-1: 1eae2f85e90a026dafd44e22ba11a0cb6f14dc2a SHA-256: 5de4758e99f403366cc6ff8411c0b1c559471ed9ff44b77b1b389885ba514c77
162 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The macro uses dangerous functions and is designed to bypass security by instructing the user to enable macros. The embedded URLs likely point to the second-stage payload. The macro's intent is to download and execute a payload from the provided URLs.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • 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://techserve4u.com/utlqwePl9XKr/alex.html
    • https://evershinesoftware.com/isei5Q7KlsQ5/alex.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
599707db4356dee9b1659b3a18ea6968bd26a6e750ede458308d788c900c5e21
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 5292 bytes