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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 625eeb7698b4d1b7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

54.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 89de52c412e42fd7d7c0cba9ef8a9dcf SHA-1: ffe90a3897ad184263631b2005dd6f7b85a93a31 SHA-256: 625eeb7698b4d1b73f8e7d965a29581efce41a6093c4fe51e0337ea9a770bea4
300 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses a lure to prompt the user to enable macros. The VBA script contains a call to URLDownloadToFile, which is used to download a file from the constructed URL 'http://' & Sheets("Files").Range("B60"). This downloaded file is then saved to the path specified by Sheets("Files").Range("B56"). The presence of Auto_Open in the XLM macros and the URLDownloadToFile API in VBA strongly indicate a downloader functionality.

Heuristics 7

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • 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.
  • URLDownloadToFile in VBA critical OLE_VBA_DOWNLOAD
    URLDownloadToFile in 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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
2a1c7329c4c8792c67abecd81ffa3d95e2243efca26ae8a7b4838634109595bd		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 5046 bytes
macros.bas
aa55a18a3f33259e345c5e53649ac5f2f1d89d5667b734f6c8f841105e5741f2		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1692 bytes

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