Xls.Trojan.War-2 — Office (OLE) / .EXE malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 68c5e12b5df5ad06…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .EXE

299.0 KB Created: 1999-02-08 09:24:15 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 2ff591305a480b34596306e8a246a407 SHA-1: 01174b72534269c28af0270a1f37b3c2d80d3edc SHA-256: 68c5e12b5df5ad063c0bfbea883091524f2713cd42911dd95273375ace06d597
520 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Xls.Trojan.War-2 · confidence 90%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1547.001 Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is identified as a malicious Excel Trojan (Xls.Trojan.War-2) due to the presence of critical VBA macro heuristics, including Auto_Open, Shell(), and CreateObject calls. The Auto_Open macro attempts to establish persistence by creating directories and saving a file to the startup path, likely to download and execute further malicious content. The VBA code also contains references to 'BackDoor' and 'Email', suggesting its function as a backdoor and potential phishing tool.

Heuristics 12

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • Embedded Office document has suspicious static findings critical EMBEDDED_OFFICE_CHILD_STATIC_TRIAGE
    A CFB/OLE Office document was found inside another file type and its carved contents matched Office exploit or payload heuristics. This catches wrapped exploit documents where the top-level file routes to a PE, archive, or generic scanner instead of Office.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Trojan.War-2 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Trojan.War-2
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • Auto_Open macro high OLE_VBA_AUTO
    Auto_Open macro
  • Auto_Close macro high OLE_VBA_AUTOCLOSE
    Auto_Close macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject 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.
  • OLE document has large unaccounted-for region high OLE_SLACK_ANOMALY
    OLE file is 278,696 bytes but its declared streams total only 0 bytes — 278,696 bytes (100%) live in unallocated sector slack. This is the canonical hiding place for pre-macro-era Office exploit payloads (XOR-encoded shellcode reached via a parser pointer-corruption bug in the document structure).
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • CFB header with no readable streams medium OLE_PARSE_EMPTY_STREAMS
    The file begins with a valid OLE2/CFB header but exposes no directory streams. A non-empty compound document with an unreadable directory is anomalous — it is seen with truncated/corrupt files and, more importantly, with content deliberately shifted off byte boundaries to defeat parsers while the host application still recovers the object.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
e93fc98f1d229433111d82a2c5cc1ad5ff4753402521f04348da49fb73b5b295
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 481771 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Trojan.War-2
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
embedded_office_off00006b58.ole
9c20b2211cda4710e23eaf79149ccee2b3de57cd71eec4719812a2a0de09a80c
embedded-office Embedded OLE/CFB Office body inside ole container at offset 0x6B58 278696 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.