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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 62673137dd9cfce7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

231.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9283cd6a0091ef0d48ae07ab1e2d16fa SHA-1: 45fc642c94dbc53a9426e787c3768025af16dedd SHA-256: 62673137dd9cfce7ca47d7bdddd0689279dcca62b9b70b2402ee22c37977b5b0
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions and includes environment evasion techniques. The document body presents a social engineering lure, instructing the user to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content" to bypass security warnings, which is a common tactic for macro-based malware.

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.
  • 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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
6deef0a47a9660b81504553ef03a92891921eb4d8f85cfdfcf06a933e4b6eec5
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 329669 bytes