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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 616a607dc3933e5e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

122.5 KB Created: 1996-12-17 01:32:42 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 33771ef1eaeffdf42a22182ccb361ad8 SHA-1: bc60d3fda4e960c3a67aaec5a5e71e4cd9ca3fbe SHA-256: 616a607dc3933e5efbfd7adb987f1d7b47fe2c2d442555c1d94301afe1c087b5
588 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1218.011 System Binary Proxy Execution: Rundll32 T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution

The sample is an Excel file containing VBA macros that are automatically executed upon opening. The macros utilize WScript.Shell and WMI to launch processes, indicating an attempt to download and execute a secondary payload. The presence of the 'SE_ENABLE_LURE' and 'SE_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND_LURE' heuristics suggests social engineering tactics to bypass security measures and trick the user into executing commands.

Heuristics 15

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
  • VBA WMI Win32_Process launcher critical OLE_VBA_WMI_PROCESS_CREATE
    VBA macro builds or references a WMI moniker for Win32_Process and invokes .Create to start a command. This is a high-confidence macro execution chain that often hides the WMI class name through string concatenation or helper functions.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Virus.Mailcab-6702020-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Virus.Mailcab-6702020-0
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • Auto_Open macro high OLE_VBA_AUTO
    Auto_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • GetObject call high OLE_VBA_GETOBJ
    GetObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Clipboard command execution lure high SE_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND_LURE
    Document tells the user to copy or paste clipboard content into Run, PowerShell, cmd, or another shell-like execution context
  • 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
  • Environ() call (env variable access) low OLE_VBA_ENVIRON
    Environ() call (env variable access)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
ece1bd97e825fc29736c8220ee005327ffbd23697d5e9910b872f5c9ba1cadd6		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 27717 bytes

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