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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 701b36a63fa76c35…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

50.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e7310bf41edb90e20104eb239d771a58 SHA-1: b41d5889e2336e2a4e590af7872df8791def898c SHA-256: 701b36a63fa76c353d4e6425af52dc5e3872d44813c447ded8f6ea58a2f877fb
222 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions, including the RUN function, to execute code. The macro is designed to prompt the user to enable content, a common lure. It also reconstructs a URL, http://staging.stikbot.toys/24.gif, and a potential download path C:\ProgramData\Triol\explorer, indicating it's likely a downloader for a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (1 URL) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • 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 http://staging.stikbot.toys/24.gifDa
    • http://staging.stikbot.toys/24.gif�
    • http://staging.stikbot.toys/24.gif

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
b85a04030ee15a5823afbe8a5c58782f7c760714b2f75fcf902d376138ea1320		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 2772 bytes

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