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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 69dd270fc4ea7538…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

373.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7af36906f5f40a2902158a49a50a7b8c SHA-1: 6ae7101ea9e7af0c1d4fc0446360583886e055c4 SHA-256: 69dd270fc4ea75380507ed62fc6c685d0f3f9b5abf4d41dcd9bf38566e03fec0
162 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 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous formula APIs, including RUN, to execute code. The document body and extracted URLs suggest it is designed to trick the user into enabling macros, which then downloads a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs. The XLM macros likely facilitate the download and execution of this payload.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • 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
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://techserve4u.com/utlqwePl9XKr/alex.html
    • https://evershinesoftware.com/isei5Q7KlsQ5/alex.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
599707db4356dee9b1659b3a18ea6968bd26a6e750ede458308d788c900c5e21
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 5292 bytes