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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7b9ee995432713e1…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

274.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-09-22
MD5: d48e69918dd0202f463fd50e6a5d5b3a SHA-1: 05aa85560cc384f078525ab321991f2eed824e06 SHA-256: 7b9ee995432713e1ff471171850d057bb2343b491113a045cbf4db02b4ca36af
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros with an Auto_Open entry, indicating it will execute automatically when the workbook is opened. It also contains a lure to enable macros, impersonating a document signing service. The extracted URL `hotelstarpacific.com/netgteq.dll` is likely the location of a second-stage payload, which would be executed using `rundll32.exe`.

Heuristics 4

  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
2acc40593deff0c34d67182765876672f026f8c9c5e7440b3c57c2eef485a4a2		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 3778 bytes

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